Time to Spare
by Secondary Luminescence
Summary: Cathryn Potter is on the run, but a letter from an old friend pulls her towards her past and her future. She's in Sokovia long before the Avengers finally track down Loki's scepter. Sequel to 'What Happened Between'. Fem!Harry.
1. Part 1

**Disclaimer:** Everything recognizable as belonging to J.K. Rowling or the Marvel Cinematic Universe does, in fact, belong to them. Likewise with the slight three-way crossover with a fictionary world belonging to S. Meyer (sorry, I didn't mean to, it just...happened, and has no long term effect on the story). This disclaimer applies to the subsequent chapters.  
Additionally, all mistakes herein are my own. I don't have a beta, so I proofread my own writing. If you do see an error, feel free to point it out in a review or a PM.

 **Warnings:** Very little of this will make sense if you haven't read 'Early Retirement' or 'What Happened Between'. Also, there are some not very pleasant scenes of torture and humiliation, so be warned. Yeah.

 **A/N:** This will be a three-part story (three chapters people, _three chapters_ ). It is completely written, but I am only posting this first chapter because I'm really supposed to be packing for a vacation that I'm leaving on tomorrow. I'll be able to update while on vacation though, so I imagine the next two chapters will be up very very very soon. As in, tomorrow or the next day.

Okay then. That's it. Enjoy!

* * *

Cathryn didn't know where she was. She had a vague idea, of course, but this far north everything looked the same: trees, rocks, trees, some sparse patches of snow, and more trees.

She'd left New York by air, fleeing in her animagus form. At first she'd flown aimlessly, heading west; there was nothing for her to the east. Then her brain caught up with her, and she turned north. Canada was, when you got far enough past the border, largely empty, with great swaths of land covered in forest and little else. People were few and far between, and for someone trying to stay unnoticed…well, it was a lonely existence, but a safe one.

Now that winter had truly set in, Cathryn was very glad for her animagus' thick fur-and-feather coat. But even with magic, it was difficult to keep warm, and after two days of constant shivering, she gave up on living wild. It only took a few hours to build a passable structure that wouldn't fall apart as the initial magic wore off.

The hut was made of stone, nestled between a copse of spruce trees and a particularly large boulder that acted as one of the walls. She braced the walls with a number of aspen saplings; the ceiling was composed of more aspens, though she used multiple severing charms to make rough boards, and covered the wood with a thick layer of branches.

It was the matter of a few minutes to put together a passable rune array to heat the hut. Cathryn conjured an armchair, summoned an orb of blue light, and settled into the chair with a warm blanket and her thickest book, content to let the world forget the content of the tens of terabytes of data that SHIELD had dumped into public domain. Maybe, if she waited for long enough, Hydra would forget about her too, and she would be able to return to civilization without worrying about being taken in for science.

* * *

Hermione's owl caught up with her two weeks after Cathryn had ended her nomadic lifestyle. She untied the letter and tightly rolled up newspaper, nonplussed at Hermione having sent her a copy of the Daily Prophet until she glimpsed her name on the front page.

 **CATHRYN POTTER WORKING FOR MUGGLES**

 **by Andrew Heckle**

 **It has come to the attention of this reporter that our own  
elusive Cathryn Potter, Woman-Who-Vanquished, has been  
confirmed as having worked with and for American muggles,  
and is none other than the Avenger known as 'Griffin'!**

The remainder of the article went on to explain what - and who - the Avengers were, and touched upon her actions in the fight against the Chitauri in New York. The last paragraph of the article called upon the readers to decide if she should be charged for breaking the Statue of Secrecy. The paper was from November 29. She flipped through the rest of the newspaper, and ended up reading a far-too-short article about a convergence of portals over Greenwich and a "brief scuffle solved by a group of what are reported to be 'scientists'", which only left her wondering what had really happened for a muggle event to be reported in the Daily Prophet.

Unfortunately, Hermione's letter didn't shed any light on the matter.

 _Dec. 07, 2013_

 _Dear Ryn,_

 _Whatever you do, you mustn't return to Britain. The French Ministry is furious - though they were looking  
for any excuse, really - and Kingsley's successor isn't nearly as forgiving. If you come back, you'll be  
looking at Azkaban, at the very least.  
We've had Aurors come search our house four times in the past week, and I had to have Ginny smuggle  
this out to George the last time she visited. I know that we're being watched by more than just Aurors,  
too. There was an Unspeakable reading in our favorite café, and we were questioned by a pair of ICW  
Enforcers.  
The law is not happy with you. You broke the Statute in a big way, and it's only because wizards are so  
oblivious to muggle technology that they didn't find out about it sooner. And so far as Ron and I can  
figure, America is protecting you, so don't leave the States unless you must.  
The only good news I can find in this whole mess is that at least only the Unspeakables seem to have  
realized that you're too young, and that's not exactly something to be happy about either.  
Don't write back. I'll send another owl when we're no longer being watched._

 _Love,  
Hermione_

Cathryn swore viciously at the newspaper. She hadn't expected to feel so trapped by the article; it wasn't as if she'd been planning on returning to Britain anytime soon, but having the option taken away wasn't the same as choosing not to go.

With an angry huff, she left the newspaper and the letter on her chair and strode out the door. She was in the air after only two steps, and she didn't come back down until the snow was falling too thick for her to see the trail of smoke that marked her little cabin.

* * *

The snow had just begun to melt, leaking through her roof no matter how many impervious charms she layered, when Hermione's owl returned. After so many months of solitude - day after day of only herself and sporadic wildlife for company - Cathryn would have welcomed even a letter from Draco Malfoy.

 _March 21, 2014_

 _Dear Ryn,_

 _I hope this letter finds you well and unharmed. It took three months for Neville to successfully bring  
the matter up in the Wizengamot, but we have, with the help of Andromeda (who I assigned the Black  
seat until Teddy is ready to take it himself) and a number of the DA members' families, managed to  
overturn the previous orders if you were sighted. You will no longer be arrested if you are found in  
Britain, and given a few more months, I am sure that I can persuade the foreign ministries'  
ambassadors to change their minds, except, of course, France, and maybe Italy. A number of our  
Wizengamot members have connections in the ICW, so I would expect them to call off their Enforcers  
as well.  
The clearing of your name does not, I fear, extend to the Department of Mysteries. While they can no  
longer legally detain you, that does not mean that they will not try to collect samples from you if they  
_do _find you, so be careful. Your reputation as the defeater of Voldemort was barely enough to get you  
out of this one, and only because so many of our schoolmates have close relatives on the Wizengamot  
did the measure pass.  
But, Ryn, I really do think I've finally managed to open the old fogeys' eyes. It took a lot of clever  
talking to get them to understand how much muggles have progressed in the past fifty years, and as  
terrible as it sounds, the fiasco at Greenwich helped to support my presentation . The Americans even  
loaned me some of their Technomancy experiments - actual mobile phones that work around magic, even  
in the heart of the Ministry! But what really changed their minds was when I told them that Thor, God of  
Thunder, and Loki, God of Mischief and Patron of Magic, were also televised in the same event that caught  
you using magic in front of muggles, as well as the events at Greenwich. Even Malfoy couldn't deny that,  
in the presence of gods, your magic could be explained away with ease.  
And still, they're unhappy, but thankfully, not at you. Now they're _frightened _. Muggles have never posed  
such a threat as the Avengers do to us now; there is actually a growing faction who are trying to petition  
for your forced return to Britain to protect the country, but so far it only has a few hundred supporters.  
Regardless of how things turn out, there's change in store for the world, no matter how far the Traditionalists  
try to bury their heads in the sand. I'm not sure if we're ready to be exposed to the muggles, let alone if the  
muggles are ready to accept that an entire civilization of witches and wizards has been living right under  
their noses for the past four hundred years.  
Now that you've been cleared, I expect to get a letter from you at least once a month, and Andromeda  
deserves a thank you. It was really her that got enough votes to overturn Malfoy's objections.  
Be safe. _

_Love,  
Hermione_

Cathryn didn't wait for the rest of the snow to melt. Even though it was nearly dusk, in under ten minutes she had everything packed back into her trunk, the fire doused with a quick freezing charm, and the door snugly closed behind her. Then she spread feathered wings and leapt from the ground, strong downwards sweeps lifting her up over her snow-laden roof, past the crooked tree-tips, and into a cloudy sky. The sun began its track to the horizon, and she used it to set her course, heading steadily southwest. She'd lived for ten years on the east coast; perhaps the west coast would prove as successful, though the absence of Steve would -

 _No_ , Cathryn scolded herself, firmly turning her mind away from the bittersweet memories. _Best not to linger on that_.

* * *

With a strong tailwind for most of the journey, it took Cathryn three days of steady flying to catch her first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. It looked far colder than the Atlantic Ocean where it lapped against New York City.

A few hours later, Cathryn gratefully landed on an empty stretch of beach, folding back into her normal body for the first time since leaving her cabin. Immediately, her sense of smell diminished, though the scent of salt was still rich in the air; more happily, the waves no longer thundered as loudly in her ears. For nearly an hour, Cathryn simply appreciated the warm - relative to where she'd been for the past five months - weather and the soothing rhythm of the waves.

Then her stomach growled, and her mind shot immediately to the town she'd seen as she'd approached the beach, perhaps only a few miles south and a little bit inland. It'd been far too long since she'd had a proper meal. She had been able to feed herself on the food she'd stored her trunk when she'd first bought it - a year on the run foraging for food because of Hermione's oversight had taught her a valuable lesson - but heating tinned food and rehydrating freeze-dried packets of oversalted backpacking meals simply wasn't the same, especially to someone who'd previously had her pick of fresh-baked pastries whenever she'd felt peckish.

A polite cough broke her from her mental drooling over the raspberry tarts that Mrs. Drew had favored, and she couldn't prevent the automatic flinch as she shifted into a dueling stance, her hand diving into her pocket before she caught hold of herself.

"Sorry." The teenager - no, young man, judging by his build and slight scruff of facial hair - had his hands in the air, though Cathryn could see by his tense shoulders and wary eyes that he was ready to flee - or at least, get out of the way - should she pull out a weapon.

"I apologize, you startled me," Cathryn slowly drew out her hand so he could see it was empty. He flashed her a quick grin and relaxed, his entire body slouching into a more comfortable position, no longer poised for a quick get-away.

"Britain?" he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Originally," Cathryn acceded.

"Must be nice to be able to travel wherever you like," he commented idly, eyes tracing her well-worn leather boots and jeans. "As soon as I graduate college, I'm gonna take a road trip all around the country."

Glad for the ready-made story, Cathryn gave a non-committal, "It is nice," before asking, "Is there anywhere good around here to eat? I haven't had a decent meal in days."

The man's face lit up. "Yeah, my sister runs the best café in town. I'll take you there." He glanced around the beach. "Where's your stuff?"

"On me," Cathryn answered truthfully. He glanced doubtfully at her clothes.

"That's it?"

She shrugged. "I prefer to travel light. When I need something new, I buy it."

His brows wrinkled for a few seconds, but then he shrugged. "At least you're not likely to lose anything. How'd you get here?" he asked as he started heading up the beach towards the tree-line.

"Hitch-hiking and walking."

"Really?" He seemed impressed. "I'm Seth, by the way, Seth Clearwater."

Cathryn blurted out the first name that came to mind. "Katie Bell." She mentally winced - 'Katie' was far too close to 'Cathryn' for her liking, though it would be easy to adjust to responding to the new name - and then asked, "What are you studying at university?"

Seth was all too pleased to talk to her about forest ecology as they hiked along the side of the road. About twenty minutes later, as Seth expounded at length about the correlation between new-growth forests and bark-beetle infestations, a dark blue truck veered onto the shoulder of the road ahead of them, skidding slightly in the mud before jerking to a halt.

A dark-haired male stuck his head out the driver's side window and shouted, "Hey, need a lift?!"

At Seth's questioning glance, Cathryn nodded.

The driver of the truck turned out to be one of Seth's good friends, Quil Ateara.

"The Fifth," Seth amended.

"No one cares about that," Quil muttered from Cathryn's left as he maneuvered tight curves in the road with an ease that spoke of deep familiarity. "You a friend of Seth's from school?" he asked after a minute of listening to Katy Perry's voice breaking on the rather beat-up radio.

"She's a hitchhiker," Seth explained eagerly, most of his voice snatched from the car by his open window. "All the way from England."

"How'd you manage that?" Quil chuckled. "Didn't know cars could get you across the ocean."

"Not what I meant," Seth objected, throwing a punch at Quil's shoulder over Cathryn's head.

"I caught a plane to New York," Cathryn said, hoping to prevent them from starting a tussle in a moving vehicle.

A second later, Quil's question made her wish she'd said nothing. "You see any of the Avengers? I heard they're in and out of Stark Tower all the time."

Before she could make up a suitable lie, Seth added, "I would've gone to that café they say that Lady Griffin used to run."

"What? I didn't know - " She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying anything incriminating. "I didn't think it was her _actual_ shop; that closed months ago, and it's privately owned, so no one could have reopened it. "

Both Quil and Seth looked surprised. "I didn't know that," Seth admitted, before brightening and saying, "It's right next door, though, it must be, or they couldn't advertise like they do."

"When did it open?" Cathryn asked, trying to figure out which of her neighboring storefronts had been purchased - the herbalist or the antique store.

"I'm not sure. A few months ago, maybe?"

"There was a news story about it," Quil broke in as he began to slow down, buildings only a few hundred meters down the road as they passed a weathered sign that read 'Welcome to La Push'. "Iron Man and Captain America were there." Cathryn thought her heart missed a beat, and her stomach clenched in anticipation of news about Steve. "Captain America didn't look too happy, and Iron Man kept on going on about how much better Lady Griffin's food was."

"But he never ate there," Cathryn objected.

An awkward silence fell in the car, and she closed her eyes in frustration. It'd been far too long since she'd interacted with other humans, if she was making such stupid slips of the tongue.

"You're her, aren't you," Quil said blankly as they entered the town.

"I knew it!" Seth exclaimed, punching the door in excitement. "I can't believe I'm meeting an Avenger!"

"I'm _not_!" Cathryn's fists were clenched in her jacket pocket, ready to - she didn't know _what_ she'd do, but it wouldn't be pretty. "Look," she said, more calmly, "If I was an Avenger, I'd be off saving the world or some such. I only agreed to join the team because SHIELD blackmailed me with information it later dumped for the whole bloody world to see."

"It was only up for, what, like twenty minutes? The FBI or someone took it down," Quil said.

"It was enough," Cathryn muttered bitterly, thinking longingly of the Butter and Crumpets Café.

There was another silence as Quil parked in a lot behind a sturdy-looking wooden-shingle building with large windows facing the street.

"What'd you do to get SHIELD to blackmail you?"

"Seth!" Quil stomped on the brake, and all three of them jerked forward. Cathryn had to put out a hand to prevent herself from breaking her nose on the dash.

"She's nineteen, tops! What's she done in - lemme think - aliens were what, two years ago? - so she wasn't even _legal_ \- "

"Trust me," Cathryn interrupted, and something in her voice made Seth cut his sentence short. "I'm older than I look." She met his eyes squarely, but it took many long minutes - Quil sighing in what sounded like exasperation in the background - for him to look away.

Tension lingered in the air until Quil opened his door and slid out. "Ready for some chow?"

The inside of the café was like returning home. The air smelled of coffee and fresh bread, and quiet conversations couldn't quite cover the sounds of metal pinging on metal and milk hissing as it foamed.

"I'll order for us all, grab a seat," Seth offered, and immediately wound his way towards the cashier.

"Shameless," Quil shook his head, leading Cathryn to a table in the furthest corner of the café. "He got a cushy internship last summer," he explained as they settled into their seats. "Pays for others whenever he can, now."

"What do you do, then?" Cathryn asked, watching Seth from the corner of her eyes as he leaned casually against the counter while the young woman behind the counter scowled and jabbed an accusing finger at him. "And who's that?"

"Leah. His sister. He'll be fine, she only bites people after her shift's over. I'm an electrician." He shrugged. "Nothing glamorous like Mr. Four-Year-College over there."

Seth returned shortly after, three steaming mugs in his hands and a plate of sandwiches balanced on his head. "Grab those, will you?"

Quil reached them before Cathryn, and set the plate in the middle of the table, where everyone could reach.

"Hot chocolate," Seth explained, putting a mug down in front of Cathryn. "She wouldn't make it Irish."

"It's fine." She knew her smile was brittle, but added, "Last time I drank, things didn't go very well."

"I know the feeling," Seth agreed. "Last semester I got stupid-drunk at a party the night before a midterm." He winced. "Luckily most of the class was at the party, so the curve was good."

Cathryn took a sandwich and ate it as Quil teased Seth for being a light-weight. She was nearly finished with her hot chocolate when Seth's sister pulled out the fourth chair and sat.

"I'm Leah," she introduced herself. "You don't want to stay here."

Cathryn stared, and then slowly lowered her mug back to the table.

"Leah - " Seth hissed, but a single glance had him bowing his head submissively.

"I don't know why you're here, and I don't care. We don't need the trouble."

Cathryn couldn't fault the other woman's logic; trouble followed her like ducklings followed their mother. "I'll leave," she agreed.

"Soon," Leah pressed, eyebrows furrowed.

"As soon as I get a meal and a shower."

"Seth, take her home." Leah stood and whispered something into his ear that made him blanch. Quil's knuckles went white on his mug, and he glanced towards the window, but when Cathryn followed his gaze, there was nothing there.

"Let's go," Seth said as soon as Leah went back to the counter.

Confused, Cathryn snatched another sandwich off the plate and followed Seth back into the parking lot, Quil hot on her heels.

"What was _that_?" she demanded as soon as Seth's door shut behind him, the truck already moving.

"Let's just say we don't want Hydra or SHIELD here poking around," Quil said quietly, taking a hard turn down a street with more pot-holes than pavement.

"Ah." Cathryn ate her sandwich efficiently even though she'd rather savor the taste of fresh food, washing it down with the bottle of water that Seth handed her. She couldn't blame them for wanting to keep their secrets their own.

* * *

After La Push, Cathryn took to disguising herself, a different disguise in each town she visited. As she made her way into Idaho and down through Nevada, and then southeast towards Louisiana, her hair went through six shades of brown, two shades of red, a purple-blue in Las Vegas, and in memory of Tonks, bright pink.

She never spoke with anyone for more than two minutes, and took to sneaking into clubs whenever she felt particularly lonely, where she would dance with strangers for hours at a time, where it was too dark and the people too inebriated to even vaguely recognize her.

Five times, she shot her Patronus into the sky, feeling slightly dizzy each time as she watched it streak upwards until it was nothing more than a sliver of light zipping to the east, towards Hermione.

* * *

The owl came partway through September. It flapped around her in confusion, unsure at her appearance.

Cathryn took pity on it and shifted out of her animagus form, holding out an arm. The owl had a huffy air about it as it settled on the offered perch and fixed her with an amber stare, unblinking as she untied the letter attached to its leg with her other hand. A single glance at her name told her that the letter wasn't from Hermione; it only took a few seconds of bafflement for Cathryn to realize who the handwriting belonged to, and she hastily broke the seal.

 _August 24, 2014_

 _My friend Katerina,_

 _I do not know how long it will take for the owl to find you. The last one returned after only two days,  
leg broken and only half the letter attached. My wife spelled this one more strongly.  
Yvette discovered early this year that her cousin and her husband died ten years ago. We tried to  
find her cousin's children - twins, nineteen years of age - but have been unsuccessful. Sokovia is not  
welcoming to foreigners, even to family.  
Yvette wants to know if they are alive, and if they are, if they will come to us. They are her only family,  
and she, theirs.  
Ekaterina will be getting a sibling soon. It is a boy, I am sure. She wants to see her godmother.  
Travel safely. You know where we are._

 _-Viktor_

Cathryn pulled her trunk out of her pocket and returned it to its proper size. It was a matter of seconds to find a scrap of parchment, a fountain pen, and scribble out a reply to Viktor.

 _September 15, 2014_

 _One month._

 _-C._

* * *

It had taken Cathryn close to six months to meander her way from La Push to a rural town in the middle of Louisiana called Bons Temps.

It took her just shy of two weeks to travel in a steady north-westerly direction, crossing the Montana-Canada border after six days. She rested for eight hours each day, preferring to fly by night to reduce chances of being seen. The next handful of days were spent soaring over the vast forests of Canada, which had long since lost their coat of snow.

By the fourth day of endless trees, Cathryn was wishing she could Apparate; she'd never flown for so long before, and even the deeply uncomfortable sensation that accompanied Apparition would be worth sparing her muscles the ever-present ache. But the last time she'd Apparated, she'd ended up somewhere distinctly _not-earth_ , and spent nearly a week trying to get back, during which time the sun never rose and she was neither hungry nor thirsty, merely dogged by a heavy and bone-deep tiredness and ominous whispering shadows.

She'd always preferred flying, anyways.

Alaska unfurled beneath her wings in three days of valleys and mountains. Rivers twined their way through the centers of the valleys, and only some of the mountains were capped in snow.

Ten days after her departure from Louisiana, Cathryn stood the western-most town of the continental United States, a small Alaskan port-town named Wales, with a population of 145.

The clouds gathered worryingly above her as Cathryn looked out to sea, and she knew that the longer she waited, the more likely it was that she would get caught in the storm that looked to be brewing.

With one last glance at continental Alaska, Cathryn took to the skies over the endless slate-grey waves.

* * *

She had never appreciated how very _large_ Russia was. Cathryn had to push herself to make it to Viktor's home in the two weeks she had left, and her haste made her careless at times. Four times she heard farmers exclaim as she passed overhead, and only two days before she began to recognize the landscape, Cathryn was shot at by a pair of wizards on broomsticks. Thankfully, the wizards were more interested in defending their families - a pair of young women with several small children huddled around each of them - than they were in chasing a rogue griffin; on brooms, they would be able to run her down like wolves after a deer.

As it was, Cathryn counted herself lucky to have not attracted even more attention when she finally landed on the outskirts of Viktor's property. She shifted into her human body for the first time in nearly a week; phantom pain itched across the yoke of her shoulders and between her shoulder blades in muscles that no longer existed in this body.

The wards allowed her entry, and Cathryn followed familiar paths through a garden slightly different than the one she'd remembered. A modest two-story house came into view when she rounded a dense copse of trees, the tops of six Quidditch hoops protruding above the roof.

A somewhat plump woman with curly brown hair opened the door a few seconds before Cathryn could knock, shirt stretched taught by a disproportionately large belly. "Dobŭr vecher, Yvette," Cathryn greeted Viktor's wife with one of the few phrases she knew of Bulgarian.

"Katerina, is goot see you," Yvette returned thickly, pulling Cathryn into a hug, pregnant belly pressing into Cathryn's gut, before leading her into the house. "Viktor is vith Rina, up - " she gestured towards the stairs " - stŭlbishte."

"Stairs," Cathryn supplied.

"Da," Yvette agreed. "Stairs." Cathryn's stomach growled, and Yvette smiled. "Come. Have eat."

Cathryn allowed Yvette to lead her to the kitchen, where she was quickly provided with a plate of leftover moussaka, over which Yvette apologized many times for it not being fresh. When Viktor finally came downstairs, Cathryn had been provided with a glass of wine and was listening to Yvette as she did her best to describe her cousin's children. He summoned himself a beer as he joined them at the table, sitting next to Yvette.

"You look vell," he said when Yvette finished her description. Viktor's accent was more easily understood than his wife's. "Thank you for helping."

"It's the least I can do," Cathryn replied easily. Viktor nodded. "How is Ekaterina?"

"Asleep," Viktor said with a tired smile. "It is her nap."

Cathryn didn't know whether or not six was too old to still be having naps, but didn't comment; she couldn't ever remember taking a nap, but the Dursley's weren't exactly role models when it came to parenting. Instead, she asked, "Has she done any magic?"

Viktor and Yvette shared a smile. "She changed the color of her sundress from pink to blue at my Baba's garden party last year," Viktor explained.

"Congratulations," Cathryn smiled, pleased with her goddaughter. A child's first display of magic was more celebrated than their learning to walk, though no less cherished. "Has she flown yet?"

"She vill be good Chaser," Viktor said decisively.

"Not a Seeker?"

Viktor frowned. "No." He didn't elaborate.

After a few moments of listening to the clock tick, Catherine asked Yvette, "What do you know about the twins?"

Yvette glanced towards Viktor and rattled off a long sentence in Bulgarian, to which Viktor nodded. "I vill speak for Yvette," he said.

Yvette gave Cathryn a bitter smile, and began, Viktor translating as the story unfolded.

"My favorite cousin Aleksandra vas a squib. She vas raised by her father, who vas alvays a little ill from a bad case of dragonpox as a boy. She married young, and had Wanda and Pietro a few years later. Alexsandra and I lost our friendship vhile I vas at school; she had already married, and could not accept owls vithout causing suspicion. But I met the twins vonce, just before I met Viktor." Viktor stumbled slightly over the oddness of saying he'd met himself, but continued quickly.

"Vonce more, ve lost touch, and I vas distracted by my own family until I wrote to ask if ve could visit. The - " Viktor broke off and interrupted Yvette's story with a question in Bulgarian. "The police," he resumed, and Yvette began to speak again. "They replied to the letter saying that Aleksandra and Danail have been dead for almost ten years, and that Pietro and Wanda have been missing for vun year." Yvette finished her story, and with an easy wave of her wand, directed the dirty dishes to the sink, where they began to wash themselves.

"Ve asked for information," Viktor said quietly, "but they vould not give us any. They do not like foreigners, even if ve are not so far avay."

Cathryn tapped her fingers on the table. "What do you know about Sokovia?"

Viktor blinked, and then shrugged. "There are very few vizards there, and they are part of the Transylvanian Magical Ministry. Most vizards do not return after school. But Muggle Sokovia has had an oppressive government for many years. The people are not happy, but they are not powerful enough to overthrow the government, and so must suffer for it. The vizards simply do not care."

Cathryn felt her stomach sink. Wading into civil unrest was the _last_ thing she wanted to do - but for Viktor, she would. She owed him more than she could probably ever repay.

"Ve have books," Yvette spoke from the stove, where she was stirring a cauldron. "And map."

"I vill take you," Viktor said, standing. Cathryn followed suit, and in short order was following Viktor's finger as it traced lines across a map of eastern Europe. There were already several markings on the map, and she listened carefully as Viktor explained what each mark meant.

Her time with the Krum family was both relaxing and stressful, and days ticked past with unexpected speed. Ekaterina - or Rina, as she was affectionately termed - was delighted to finally meet her namesake, and took to following Cathryn everywhere, even, to her parents' chagrin, sneaking into Cathryn's bed in the middle of the night after a scary dream about werewolves and dragons chasing her. Cathryn didn't mind her godchild's presence, and often wondered Rina's enthusiasm and innocence, which didn't match up with her own memories of being six.

"You vant baby?" Yvette asked late in the evening of Cathryn's fourth week of preparation for traveling in Sokovia. The larger woman slowly lowered herself onto the sofa cushion next to Cathryn. "I haff friends to meet to you?"

"Thank you, but no," Cathryn turned the woman's offer down. "I don't need any introductions." She stared at Yvette's belly for a long moment, imagining how large Hermione - a smaller woman than Yvette - must have seemed at that stage in her own pregnancies. She hesitated, and then asked, "How much do you know? About me?"

Yvette sighed as she leaned back and propped her feet on the coffee table, ignoring the clutter of brightly colored drawings and Quidditch magazines. "Vhat Viktor has told, is vhat I know. And dat you are more young, I see."

"Too young," Cathryn corrected quietly, "but yes, I am." She hesitated, and then said, "I do not age." It wasn't quite the truth of 'I can't die', but it was close enough. "I do not think I _can_ have children." In fact, she was sure of it; how could a walking dead woman have children? The answer was, she couldn't.

Yvette's hand was hot against her own, but Cathryn didn't mind, and the two women sat holding hands on the sofa until Yvette had to lever herself upright to empty her bladder. Cathryn went to bed not long after, and when she woke up the next morning, she was ready to leave.

* * *

Viktor traveled with her for the three days that it took to reach border of Sokovia.

"I vill get in trouble if I am caught," he said, hovering in place on his broomstick. He had side-along Apparated her for some distance, but they had had to travel the remainder by broom. "The Transylvanians do not like Bulgarians. Ve have bad history." After a pause, he added, "I should go now." He glanced longingly to the north-west, where the city of Novi Grad sat.

"Yvette and Rina are waiting for you," Cathryn reminded him.

"I know." Viktor grimaced. "I do not like leaving you here. It does not feel right."

"I can take care of myself," Cathryn said with a smile.

"I know," Viktor repeated, more resigned. "Vell, good luck."

"Don't contact me," Cathryn warned him. "I don't want to get caught because you send an owl to me and it swoops down in the middle of the road." Viktor looked troubled, but nodded. "I'll send you a Patronus when I find them."

Viktor's face cleared. "You are a poverful vitch, Katerina. Be safe."

"You too."

She watched as he pulled his broom up and made an impossibly sharp turn back in the direction they'd come from. Cathryn waited until he'd disappeared behind several trees before she pulled her trunk out of her jacket pocket and unshrunk it. Her broomstick was returned to the second compartment, and she removed a modest-sized backpack from the first compartment before shrinking the trunk once more and tucking it into the backpack, where it would be less likely to get in her way. With on last glance towards where Viktor had disappeared, Cathryn started down the incline towards Novi Grad. It would be a long hike.

* * *

Cathryn ended up catching a bus to Novi Grad. The city was nothing like she'd expected. The houses and apartments radiated from a hill with a mansion on top, growing more modern the further they were from the mansion, which vaguely resembled a poor man's version of Hogwarts. The entire city felt - grey. The buildings were grey, the people wore muted colors, and even the children's laughter was dull. The city was depressed, and the only color came from the people's anger. Red graffiti stood out in bloody contrast to the mass of surrounding grey.

She found herself growing more and more despondent in response to her surroundings, partly out of desire to blend in with the indigent population, but also partly because the very air of the city seemed to drag at her.

It was a matter of luck that it only took her a week to catch the first trace of the Maximoff family - in a graveyard. From there, Cathryn posed as Yvette, belatedly mourning the loss of her cousin and the disappearances of her cousin's children.

Wanda and Pietro were not unknown, and in the following two weeks Cathryn learned a lot about Yvette's cousins. Pietro and Wanda had been sent to an orphanage after being released from the hospital the week after the bombing. They'd attended school and done odd jobs throughout their teenage years. Starting at age thirteen, they'd begun joining the frequent protests against the government; they'd spent more than a few nights in holding cells as a result. At age sixteen, they moved themselves out of the orphanage and into their old apartment, which had been rebuilt in the same spot. They continued to attend school until age seventeen, at which point, so far as Cathryn could discover, they did nothing but attend the occasional protest.

It was odd, the one thing that didn't fit. Wanda and Pietro had attended every single organized protest against the government since first discovering them seven years prior. And then, three years ago, they stopped. Not completely, but their attendance was sporadic, behavior that didn't fit with their history.

Cathryn spent days agonizing over why they might have stopped. Wanda and Pietro's old neighbors were no help; many of them didn't like her after all the questions she'd asked over the past month, and all of them were wary of her. She was, after all, a foreigner, even if she claimed to be their relative.

Not even Wanda's old friends - what few of them there were - could help. Most of them ignored her, pretending not to understand either English or Cathryn's poor attempts at their native language. The last of them, a girl with dyed black hair and dark purple lipstick, blew a large bubble of gum, popped it, and said plainly, "No," before turning and slouching back into what was, so far as Cathryn could discern, a second-hand shop.

Pietro didn't have any friends. A few young women remembered him for his good looks, and one teenager - hardy more than eighteen - spat at Cathryn's feet when she mentioned his name.

By the time February was halfway over, Cathryn was ready to give up. Wherever Pietro and Wanda were, they were not hiding in the city, and furthermore, even if anyone _had_ known of their whereabouts, she highly doubted that they would share that information with her.

Still, Cathryn was reluctant to leave. She owed Viktor rather a large debt, and even if she hadn't, she liked Yvette enough to dedicate as much time as she needed to in order to find the woman's cousins. So instead of flying out of the city in the dead of night, Cathryn gritted her teeth against the, at best, scornful glances of the citizens of Novi Grad and allowed herself to fade into the scenery of the dull city.

Partway through March, her plan showed its first sign of success. It wasn't much - more of a passing comment overheard at a laundromat than anything - but any information was better than nothing. Wanda and Pietro had left the city at the same time as a number of other one-time political activists; none of the other protesters had been seen again, and the families of those who had gone missing had heard nothing from them, though a little digging and discrete guiding of a conversation with a very drunk middle-aged woman revealed that each of the families had received the Sokovian equivalent of ten thousand American dollars.

A few days later, Cathryn was in her closet-sized apartment - just a few doors down from where the twins had grown up, and, according to their public records, still lived - when a familiar tapping came from the window.

Glancing at the owl silhouetted against the harsh daylight, Cathryn lunged for the window, fumbling the lock open. The owl hooted dully and fluttered past her, gliding to a stop to perch on the metal frame of her bed. After checking the street - no one below seemed to have noticed the owl - Cathryn closed the window and untied the letter from the owl's leg.

 _19 March, 2015_

 _Katerina,_

 _My son Aleksandar Danail Krum was born this morning. He will be a Keeper, I am sure.  
If you have not found the twins in a week, come home. Yvette will search for them  
later. We will need you here to make you Alek's godmother; Lev will be his godfather  
and first guard. If it were possible, we would have you be Alek's first guard, but you  
are already Rina's.  
Rina is a very good sister. She asks after you every day, and wants to introduce you to  
her brother. I am sure the enthusiasm will fade when Alek begins to cry. _

_-Viktor_

Happiness for Viktor and Yvette filled Cathryn with warmth, and she scrawled out a hasty congratulations on a spare bit of paper. The owl fairly snatched the note from her hand, and glared imperiously at the closed window.

"It's too bright out," Cathryn told the bird, wishing that she still had Hedwig, who would have understood immediately the reason for not being allowed out.

This owl swooped down, its free claws raking through Cathryn's hair as it let out an irate screech.

A muffled exclamation came through the walls from the adjacent apartment, and Cathryn swore before hurrying to her trunk, pressing her hand easily through the wards. Her wand was where she'd put it upon first renting the apartment, tucked into the fat roll of parchment that held the runic schemes for the wards she'd erected around the Butter-and-Crumpets, but instead of smooth holly, her fingers found the slightly rough wood of elder. Cathryn hesitated at the unmistakable rush of chill and power that emanated from the Elder Wand; it had been a very long time since she'd used it, but a furtive glance at the owl convinced her.

As with all magical creatures, post owls were notoriously difficult to cast magic on - not as difficult as a troll or a dragon, of course, but still, anything more than a simple color-changing charm had the tendency to wear off within seconds. With the Elder Wand, though…well, it had fixed a wand broken beyond even Ollivander's skill to repair; an owl would be easy.

Assuming, of course, that the owl would stay still long enough for Cathryn to hit it with a distraction jinx. By the time the owl escaped through the window, Cathryn had missed the bird no less than six times. With a scowl and swish of her wand, a shattered bowl reassembled itself as two apples, an orange, and a banana resituated themselves in the repaired dish, scattered papers and parchments collected themselves in a neat pile on her desk, three feathers zoomed into the trash receptacle, and the window slammed itself hard enough to rattle the glass.

She grumbled to herself as she rifled through her trunk, not looking forward to the bruise that would doubtlessly show up in the next few hours from where the owl had clipped her on the shoulder with its wing. Only after the Wand had joined its fellow Hallows in her mokeskin pouch at the very bottom of her trunk, and the trunk itself was thoroughly locked and wards put back in place, did Cathryn turn her mind to figuring out the path of greatest probability of locating the twins in the week remaining.

A slight smile played about her lips as she imagined the owl's future interactions; the bird would find it difficult to get _anyone_ 's attention, at least until the jinx wore off. For Viktor's sake, she hoped it was soon.

* * *

"Two million dollars."

Cathryn dropped the box of newspapers, hand darting towards her coat pocket and the wand inside. Her hand was wrenched away from the pocket by a man dressed entirely in black combat armor, who pulled her through the doorway into her apartment; a second man put an end to her attempts to free herself, and she gave up completely when four more men jogged into the room from the hallway, two of them pointing their guns at her. The other two searched her, taking away her purse, her wand, her keys - even a hairpin she'd long since forgotten about tucked deep into one of her coat pockets.

In the short time she'd been away, her apartment had been stripped clean of her possessions. The man who'd spoken stood at the window, watching her with an almost greedy expression despite the chiding tone to his voice.

He adjusted the monocle that appeared to be embedded in his skull. "Two million dollars, and three field agents captured by the sickly remnants of SHIELD. I dedicated time, money, and resources on your search, and now…" He gestured towards her. "Here you are, less than two miles from my base! You'll be able to see for yourself, of course."

Understanding jolted through Cathryn like an electric shock, and she twisted violently, hoping against hope that she would be able to Apparate without a wand if she could just get away from the men, only to freeze at the sound of a gun's mechanism clicking into place.

"I wouldn't try anything…inhuman if I were you," the man continued blithely. "I've given my agents permission to shoot you as soon as you show signs of transforming into that beast you can turn into. Fatally."

"It's not a _beast_ , it's a griffin, thank you."

"Semantics," the man waved a hand, and the safety clicked back into place. "I don't _want_ to kill you," he said, walking towards her. "You won't be nearly as useful to Hydra if you're dead. But a body is better than nothing at all, especially the body of someone like you."

Dread shot through Cathryn - how much did this man know? Was the Wizengamot right? Had she exposed the wizarding world? From the midst of her dismay came a slyly logical thought. _So what if you die - you'll just wake up a few hours later as if it'd never happened_. Cathryn nearly flinched at the thought. It was bad enough that these muggles knew about some of her powers; if they ever found out she didn't stay dead, she'd be killed six ways each week. _No_ , she thought firmly, _I'll only risk them finding out if it's my best chance at escape._ If she could get her wand and Apparate away - and damn whatever shadow-world she ended up in! - it wouldn't matter how many bullets were in her body.

"Of course, the body of any one of the Avengers would be a godsend." The man chuckled at his own joke. "But you - you are especially interesting, given our current research. I think you'll find you quite like the company you'll be keeping. Take her!"

The muffled _whoomp_ of a silenced gun filled the apartment, and Cathryn stared dumbly at the dart in her upper thigh. It only took a few seconds for her frantic heart to pump the drug through her body. Her knees buckled and her neck weakened. A haze settled over the room as the man walked past, and then her clouded vision tunneled until -

* * *

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Cathryn had never been in a muggle hospital before, but she'd seen enough television to recognize the sound of medical equipment. It took her long seconds to open drug-heavy eyes, and once open, it took all of her effort to stop her eyelids from drifting shut again.

Aside from the medical equipment (which was abundant), the only things Cathryn could see were the dark grey stone of the ceiling and the clean white of the curtains surrounding her. Light filtered softly through the curtains, silhouetting two humans.

The beeping of the heart-tracking machine sped up, and an alarm blared.

Cathryn pulled futilely against the restraints keeping her in the bed until a slight woman flanked by two guards entered her makeshift 'room'. Before the curtains closed, she caught a glimpse of several other beds like hers, all of them empty. Her heart - and the beeping monitor - sped up even more.

The woman turned off the alarm and checked the machines, pressing various buttons. The guards took up position at the base of Cathryn's bed; under their stony gaze, she stopped struggling against the restraints (it was pointless trying to get out of them; there were simply too many - thick leather straps about her ankles, knees, waist, wrists, and upper chest) in favor of returning the stares with an expression that, with any luck, promised a painful future when she managed to free herself.

Because she would.

Cathryn had been in worse situations - although they were slipping her mind at the moment; perhaps the basilisk counted as worse? - and she had no doubt that she would, eventually, no matter how long it took, get free.

The woman took advantage of Cathryn's stillness to check her pupillary response to light, and then gently squeezed just below Cathryn's jaw. Cathryn grudgingly allowed the woman to open her mouth and peer inside, and resisted the urge to poke her tongue out at the woman.

After a few more minutes in which Cathryn silently suffered a very thorough full-body health-check, the woman turned to the guards and spewed out a long sentence in German. The only word that Cathryn understood was 'fraulein', but when the woman finally stopped talking, she began to unhook Cathryn from the various machines, her movements swift but gentle. When the last needle was extracted from her arm, Cathryn tensed in preparation for the straps to be undone, but the woman merely nodded curtly to the soldiers.

The bed shook briefly and a loud _click_ sounded, and then Cathryn was being wheeled out of the white-curtained medical room. Panic surged from her stomach to her throat, but she swallowed it down in an effort to keep track of where she was being taken. It was difficult, when so many of the corridors and rooms that she passed through looked the same, and she could only move her head so far.

As time trickled past, the more her trepidation grew. _As soon as I see a window_ , Cathryn promised herself, _I'll transform and flee_. She didn't let herself think about how easily her plan could go wrong - in all likelihood, she wouldn't be able to free herself from the straps before the guards shot her, but having a plan, no matter how poor of a plan it was, cleared the fear that had clouded her mind, eyes alert for any indication of a window.

There were none.

Cathryn estimated that she'd been pushed along for close to ten minutes, dragged down countless halls and through enumerable rooms, guided down ramps and carried up and down an impressive number of staircases, but not once did she so much as glimpse a window.

The woman preceded them into the largest room yet. A slender folder was handed to a wiry man in a white lab coat, and the woman marched away. The expression on the woman's face as she strode past Cathryn was not comforting, and when she glanced around the room, the tiny bubble of hope that had lodged itself in the back of her mind died without so much as a whimper and dread settled into her stomach with all the grace of a cement elephant.

Science had always been good to muggles; she very much doubted it would be good for her.

They started gently.

Eight vials of blood, clinically withdrawn. A full body scan with a very large machine, and then another, followed by furtive discussion when the second scanning machine stopped working with an ominous _clunk_.

Scientists waited in line with various instruments.

Cathryn was poked, prodded, and treated as little more than a particularly fascinating animal. When she objected, six more straps were added to keep her from so much as turning her head. If Cathryn attempted to transform now, her griffin form would suffocate, if her ribs didn't collapse from the tightness of the two straps across her chest.

Within an hour, her jaw hurt from the angle the gag forced it to keep.

By the second hour, tears of frustration, pain, and - though she hated herself for it - fear, trickled slowly down her cheeks.

After the fourth hour - by which time the scientists had by-and-large gleaned whatever information they needed from her, and were working furiously at their benches - Cathryn made the loudest noise she could. The half-scream half-whine brought one of the two guards from behind her to attention, standing in front of her, gun at the ready. The other guard undid the gag; a mixture of anger and thankfulness flooded though her, and she gratefully closed her mouth and swallowed in an attempt to get rid of the dryness left from the gag.

"I need to use the lavatory."

The guard turned to his peer, who barked something in German to the nearest scientist.

In short order, an old woman with steely hair and patrician features stood in front of Cathryn, an odd-shaped glass container in her gloved hands. With an indifferent air, the scientist waited while the guards set aside their guns and, with a grunt, lifted the bed and set it on its end. For the first time, Cathryn could see the entire room, but her attention was distracted as the guards continued to fuss with the bed. Pins were removed, levers pulled, and dials turned. With a ruthless jerk, the minimalist cushion between her back and the metal of the frame was removed, and for six painful seconds, the only things keeping her upright were the unforgiving metal and leather of the straps. Then a pair of stirrups smacked against her heels, and with a few awkward motions, Cathryn was able to get her feet under her.

Throughout the entire process, the scientist watched blandly.

A metallic _clang_ purchased the attention of most of the room, but only for a fraction of a second before they once again disregarded her in favor of their data. A nearly solid piece of metal was lain on the floor just within her line of sight - a slab of metal the exact size of the bed, but with an odd shape cut from it, a shape that resembled a human skeleton. It didn't take a genius to conclude that she was leaning against that metal skeleton.

The straps around her ankles loosened, and then fell free, but hope barely had a chance to assert itself before pain drowned it. Her legs were twisted to a painful angle so that her ankles could once more be secured, this time further apart.

Humiliation and fury scorched through her as she realized what the glass receptacle was for, and she fixed the old woman with her fiercest glare. "You cunt."

The woman was unbothered, and the only thing Cathryn got for her insult was a painful jerk of her hair as one of the guards yanked her head back for the other to retie the gag.

Cathryn was too angry to be embarrassed when the woman fit the cold, smooth glass to her groin; the edges of the glass traced from just above her pubic bone all the way back to the upwards curve of her arse, and the bowl of the container kissed her inner thighs.

Despite her anger, it didn't take long for Cathryn to relieve herself. All the while, as her urine splashed against the glass and spattered upwards against her own skin, she coldly memorized the woman's features.

She hoped the scientist could read her expression: when Cathryn got free, she'd be the first to be Obliviated, and if Cathryn's Memory-Wiping Charm was out of practice...well, mistakes happened.

* * *

The scientists kept her for days. It was hard to tell how much time passed - there were no windows and no clocks - so Cathryn counted by how often her guards were replaced, which she guessed to be every six hours. Even with the guard rotation, she couldn't be sure. She'd been drugged a few times, and she was never sure how long she was out for.

Sometime after the first drug-induced stupor, she realized she'd missed the twenty-four hour window for the Hallows to show up. She didn't think they'd shown up while she was unconscious, judging by the lack of chaos in the lab, which meant that the Hallows were within a few miles - presumably inside the same building. With luck - and the inherent magic of the mokeskin pouch - the Hydra agents would never find them; it was equally likely that she wouldn't find them either even if she could get free, but once she got far enough away, the Hallows would follow her.

The black-outs made it difficult to keep track of time, and Cathryn estimated she had been in the lab for somewhere between four and six days when she was finally released from the metal frame. The guards had to hold her upright as a series of restraints were strapped on.

By the time her wrists were secured to a chain that ran between the metal bands about her throat and waist, Cathryn had regained control of her limbs, although her pace was considerably slower than that of the guards as she followed them out of the lab and through the maze of corridors.

As soon as she stepped out of the lab, Cathryn's skin erupted in goose pimples. The lab's temperature, it seemed, was strictly regulated - most likely so that their science wouldn't be ruined. Her scowl deepened, but she wasn't allowed to dwell on her anger; the guards had decided she was moving too slowly, and with the barrel of a gun pressed between her shoulder blades, she had no choice but to devote all her depleted energy towards forcing her legs to move faster.

Their final destination was an office, small and sparsely furnished though Cathryn wouldn't have cared what the décor was like even if it'd been identical to Dumbledore's; the only part of the office that she cared about was the window, a slender, single pane of glass that reflected the profile of the man bent over the desk.

 _So, it's night_ , Cathryn realized. She hadn't been sure, and somehow just knowing where the sun was - or wasn't - made her feel less hopeless; not knowing whether it was night or day was more disorienting than she would have expected.

Cathryn allowed the soldiers to force her into a chair, the chains clinking when they settled into her lap; her attention was fixed on the window, wishing someone would put out the light so that she'd be able to see more than just the reflection of a man she would rather be dead, or at the very least, in prison.

The soldiers situated themselves on either side of her; she continued to ignore them, and the man at the desk continued to disregard all three of them, typing at a constant, unhurried pace.

Close to five minutes passed before the man shifted the laptop so that it wasn't in his line of sight. He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled on the desk, and focused on her, eyes lingering on the metal band around her neck. She waited for him to speak, her mind scrambling to find some way to turn this confrontation to her advantage.

Finally, the man sighed, unclasped his monocle from its frame, and polished it with a cloth from his desk.

The monocle was refastened with an almost silent _click_. "My scientists have reached a dead end with their research."

Cathryn raised her eyebrows. Only when it seemed that the man required some sort of verbal reply did she clear her throat. The man waved his hand towards her gag, and one of the soldiers removed it. Cathryn cleared her throat again, and said, "My sympathies to them."

The man chuckled. "They are only finished because I have denied them several procedures that might cause irreparable damage to the subject."

Cathryn forced herself to count to ten before replying. "My thanks for the interference," she said lightly, though the words stuck in the back of her throat and made her want to gag.

The man nodded approvingly. "I am pleased that you are appreciative of my efforts. I am also interested in the results of some of the procedures. The previous subjects have not fared well, but I am sure you would survive. It is best," he continued, "not to take such risks with such a valuable asset, not when there are other purposes to which it can be applied."

Cathryn closed her eyes briefly. She knew blackmail when she heard it, even when it was so politely couched in scientific jargon. After a hesitation where her Gryffindor and Slytherin aspects warred against each other, she asked, "What do you want from me?"

With an intense expression, the man leaned forward in his chair, hands flat on the desk. "How long have you had your powers? Where did you learn to control them? What is your focus made of - who made it, you or someone else? Where did you disappear to at age eleven? Why does your family not remember you, but old classmates and teachers do? Why choose the name 'Black'? Are you a mutant?"

It was an easy decision, and the lies spilled from her lips. She'd had a lot of time to come up with plausible stories. "I've always had my powers, and I ran away shortly after my eleventh birthday to learn to control them. Nobody taught me. I moved constantly. I made the stick. It's holly and one of my feathers. When I figured out how, I returned to my Aunt's house and wiped their memories of me. I like the color black. I don't know if I'm a mutant - you should probably ask your scientists." She paused, mentally cataloged the questions he'd asked, and then added, "What's your name? I'm rather partial to 'megalomaniacal pseudo-scientist Hitler-wanna-be', but it's getting difficult to keep calling you that in my head."

The man's smile, which had grown at each of her answers, became rather fixed. "I am Baron von Strucker. You are a liar."

"Why would I lie?"

"To protect others. You hero-types are easy to predict. Are you part of SHIELD?"

Cathryn snorted. "It doesn't exist anymore. And no, I'm not, and I never was. They blackmailed me into joining the Avengers."

Strucker gave her a bland smile. "Tell me about the Avengers."

"I worked with them for less than two days. I hardly know them."

"Another lie." Strucker turned the laptop around so that Cathryn could see the screen. A large photo of herself and Steve strolling through Central Park, hand-in-hand, took up the screen. Strucker tapped a key, and the photo was replaced by one of herself, Steve, and Natasha standing outside of a theater, and then one of her setting a Steve's usual breakfast before him; the two of them laughing at some long-forgotten joke; Steve leaning against the counter, watching her empty the display of unsold pastries.

The screen went black, and Strucker said coldly, "Try again. Tell me about the Avengers. Start with Captain America."

Cathryn said nothing.

"Did he know who you are?"

She yawned.

"He didn't. You told him, and he left." Strucker grinned cruelly when Cathryn froze midway through stretching her legs. "If we'd known who you were, you never would have gotten away after SHIELD was destroyed. We know that you had to have had some sort of warning - was it Rogers, then? Some amount of team loyalty remained, even if it was you." Strucker nodded to himself. "What do you know about Thor?"

Cathryn rattled her chains. When Strucker opened his mouth to ask another question, she rattled them again, drowning out any words he might have spoken. He scowled, and she didn't bother to hide her smirk.

"Cell 4," Strucker told the soldiers. "And secure her arms behind her back. The gag is not needed."

Her cell was in another lab, although this lab appeared to be for engineers rather than scientists. She didn't pay much attention to the Hydra associates; her focus was entirely on the two cells with occupants, both of whom she recognized with little trouble.

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff inhabited adjacent cells - or at least, Cathryn assumed that the sleeping male was Pietro from what she could see of his face. Wanda met Cathryn's eyes as she was marched past the cells; the younger woman's hands idly toyed with an amorphous ball of red energy, but her eyes never wavered from Cathryn's, shifting to the other side of the cell to keep contact.

Cathryn was put in the cell to Pietro's other side. There was a bed, a toilet, and a sink, and as soon as the soldiers unbound her chains - although the bands remained about her neck and waist - Cathryn gratefully collapsed onto the bed. The thin mattress and even thinner blanket felt luxurious after days strapped to a metal frame. She was on the verge of falling asleep when she heard a soft tapping coming through the wall next to her.

She sat up and, somewhat hesitantly, tapped twice on the stone.

"Come over here." Pietro's English was better than Viktor's, and his accent was less overpowering.

Cathryn hurried to the front of the cell and pressed against the bars. "You are Pietro Maximoff?"

There was a long pause, and she considered that maybe she shouldn't have started out by showing that she knew his name. "Yes," he said at last, and she could just barely see his shoulder where it jutted through the bars of his cell. "How do you know my name?"

She glanced at the lab - only five people were there, and all of them were clustered around a computer on the far side of the room. Cathryn whispered, "Your cousin is looking for you - both of you."

"I have no cousins," Pietro responded immediately.

"Your mother's cousin is your cousin once removed," Cathryn argued back. "She visited you once, when you were very young. Her name is Yvette."

"I do not know - "

"I remember." Cathryn had to back up to the furthest side of the cell door to be able to see Wanda's hands where they draped through the bars of her cell. "Why did she send you, and not come herself?"

"She just had a baby." Cathryn added, more quietly, "Aleksandar Danail."

After a moment of silence, a flurry of Slavic flashed between the two siblings. Finally, Pietro asked, "Why did she not come for us when our parents died?"

"She didn't know. No one ever told her what had happened."

"Then why send you?" Wanda pressed, a few sparks of red flickering at the ends of her fingers. "How does our cousin know an Avenger?"

"What? Which one of those - " Pietro's demands continued in his native language, and Cathryn could only imagine the sort of questions he was asking.

Wanda's reply was simple. "Griffin."

"Ah."

"Well?" Wanda prodded, fingers trailing thick strands of energy as they stroked across the bars. Cathryn wondered why the twins were even in cages; perhaps Wanda hadn't worked out how to open a lock with her power. "How do you know our cousin."

"I competed against her husband in a Tournament. We stayed friends afterwards, and I'm their children's godmother."

"There are - " Pietro fell silent, and the three of them watched as two soldiers hurried past the cells, barely sparing them a glance. " - more than one?" Pietro finished.

"A girl," Cathryn agreed. "Ekaterina."

Wanda scoffed, but Pietro reached through his bars towards Cathryn; she froze until his hand found hers. His fingers were warm - too warm, almost - but far more human than the gloved hands of the scientists. "They are safe?" he asked.

"Yes." Pietro's hand dropped back to his own cell. "Hydra will never find them."

"Never say never," Wanda muttered from her cell. Her hands vanished from view. A few seconds later, red flickering light cast shadows on the floor.

Cathryn frowned, and then asked quietly, "Has she always been able to do that?"

"No," Pietro answered curtly. "It is - "

One of the Hyrda engineers moved to the table closest to the cells, and Pietro fell silent. A few seconds later, Cathryn heard a faint thumping against the wall; she returned to her bed, but sleep eluded her. Instead, she gazed out at the lab, staring sightlessly at the computer screen.

* * *

Cathryn realized that she must have fallen asleep at some point, because she was woken by the loud screech of her cell door swinging open. Two soldiers were hoisting her from her bed before she could process what was happening, and they carried her for a few steps until she managed to get her feet under her.

"What's going on?"

She received no answer - she hadn't expected to - and did her best to figure it out on her own as she was escorted through several doors that were opened remotely as they approached. Cathryn counted nine cameras in the four hallways she was marched down.

The last door - or rather, series of doors, because the space between them was too small to count as a hallway - opened to a wide room with padded walls. Wanda and Pietro were on the far side of the room, leaning on one another in a sort of half-hug as they spoke in hushed voices.

The soldiers let Cathryn go so suddenly that she nearly stumbled. They situated themselves on either side of the door, joining six more of their peers.

She took a step towards the door, and all eight of the soldiers stiffened, hands dropping to their guns. "Whoa - no need to get worked up about it!" She immediately backed up, moving towards the center of the room. The further away from the door she was, the more relaxed the guards seemed.

"They shot the last person who tried to leave." Cathryn flinched; she hadn't heard Pietro moving across the room. Wanda was still on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall with a scowl on her face as she watched her brother and Cathryn. "Real bullets," Pietro added.

"That's nice. What exactly do they want us to do in here?"

Pietro shrugged. "I mostly run. Wanda plays with her power. They probably want you to exercise whatever powers you've got."

Cathryn chuckled, giving the guards a malicious sneer. "I highly doubt that," she muttered. Pietro laughed. "And what do you mean, you _run_?"

He smirked, winked, and then vanished. Cathryn gasped - had he just Apparated?! But - no. A blur traced around the perimeter of the room, and the guards all leaned back, as if pushed by a strong wind.

Cathryn blinked rapidly, and the blur separated slightly - an elbow, white-blonde hair streaming back, a hand braced against the floor to make a sharp turn. "Bloody hell."

Pietro solidified, skidding slightly as he came to a stop in front of her. "I run," he said, not even breathing heavily.

"Yeah," Cathryn agreed.

"Move." Wanda shouldered past her brother, hands trailing wisps of red through the air as she reached out and grabbed Cathryn's face, fingers digging into her scalp.

"Wanda, don't!" Pietro's panic was unexpected.

"What are you - " Cathryn started. The pain caught her off guard. It had been years since anyone had attempted to Legilimize her, and this was only vaguely reminiscent of the sensation; if not for the pain of her Occlumency barriers crushing dangerously inwards, Cathryn wouldn't have even noticed that someone was trying to get into her head. She let out a small cry of pain before she could get hold of herself. "Stop," she ground out, hands at Wanda's wrists in an attempt to pry the woman's hands away from her skin.

"Wanda - " Pietro joined in Cathryn's efforts. "Remember what happened last time!"

"Don't tell me," Cathryn panted. Wanda's energy was almost like magic, although Cathryn knew instinctively that it was not at all the same as the magic she'd grown up learning. That had been refined by thousands of years of research; this was coarse - a hammer instead of a needle.

Pietro's hands vanished, and then Wanda was tumbling across the padded floor, Pietro wrapped around her.

Cathryn sank to the ground, cradling her head in her hands. She'd never had a headache so bad - not even the horcrux-headaches compared. She wouldn't be surprised if she began bleeding from her ears, and she very much wished that one of the guards would dope her up with whatever drugs they had used to abduct her in the first place.

The ground indented slightly next to her, and Cathryn flinched away. "Why can't I get in?" Wanda sounded genuinely confused.

"Cathryn is a witch." She was almost glad to hear Strucker's voice from the way Wanda leapt to her feet. And then he continued speaking, and she wished he would stop; every word sent red dots spinning across the backs of her eyelids. "It would seem that her own powers act as a block to yours. Shall we test the theory?"

She was hauled to her feet again, and her hands were dragged from her face. It took her a few seconds to bring Strucker's features into focus.

"Keep your eyes on me," Strucker told her. He gripped her chin between his fingers and turned her head first to the left, and then to the right, before brushing a stray piece of hair from her face. She tried to push him away, but the hands around her arms tightened "I will be very upset if you have permanently harmed her," he said disapprovingly, still not looking away. "I have many plans for her."

"Sorry." Wanda didn't sound particularly contrite.

"You should be." Strucker's men finally let go, and Cathryn shakily brushed at her skin. She'd been humiliated by the scientists, but she'd never felt unclean with them; they'd been professional about everything. "She is your teacher." He patted Cathryn's shoulder, and then strode away; the doors opened as he approached, the guards all with their guns pointed at Pietro, who lounged exaggeratedly in the far corner of the room.

As soon as the doors closed, Wanda turned her scowl on Cathryn. "There is nothing I can learn from you."

"I'm inclined to agree," Cathryn snapped, "Seeing as you've got the subtlety of a two-year-old in a sweet shop."

"I told you that you're trying too hard," Pietro called out from his corner, cutting Wanda short before she could even open her mouth. In a blur of motion, he joined the two of them in the middle of the room. "You just need to - "

"You don't understand!" Wanda hissed, rounding on her brother. "Yours is easy - you've been able to run all your life!"

Pietro frowned. "I had to learn to move all over again. It took me weeks to be able to walk normally."

Wanda scowled, turning away from her brother. Pietro just shrugged and dashed away. Cathryn counted him passing behind Wanda three times before she spoke.

"Sorry." Wanda seemed genuinely apologetic.

"Sure." Cathryn slowly sat, lowering herself to hands and knees before settling into a comfortable position.

Wanda flopped onto the floor next to her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." _Except for a headache the size of Neptune and a growing need to vomit_.

"Great." Wanda combed her fingers through her hair. "What are we starting with?"

Cathryn gave a humorless chuckle. "You actually think I'm going to teach you?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

Behind Wanda, Pietro slowed down enough that he was no longer just a blur of color, although now seemed like she was seeing him through a sheet of falling water.

"I don't know you. Why should I teach you - I don't know what you're going to do with the knowledge, and that's even assuming I _can_ teach you. Your powers aren't like mine. I don't do what you do."

"Strucker won't be happy." Pietro joined them on the floor, laying his head in Wanda's lap and stretching his legs towards the door. Cathryn had to squint whenever she looked at him; his hair was too bright.

"Another reason not to teach you."

Wanda winced. "If Strucker says to do something, do it," she warned.

"It's easier," Pietro added.

"It's a good thing I've never been one for the easy road."

Pietro said something in their native language. Wanda looked like she wanted to argue, but a few more words from her brother had her scowling but nodding. She glanced at the guards, and then leaned towards Cathryn, dislodging her brother to better situate her mouth next to Cathryn's ear. "It hurts me too. I can't control it all the time."

"But you _can_ choose who you use it on," Cathryn whispered heatedly, head throbbing.

" _Please_." Wanda reached out. Her fingertips had only barely brushed the skin of Cathryn's arm when the spark flared; a frisson of untamed energy raced up her arm, leaving her hair standing on end. Cathryn leaned away from the twins and vomited.

"Get her out." Strucker's voice came from everywhere.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!"

Cathryn couldn't reply. Her limbs were trembling, and her legs gave out as soon as one of the guards pulled her upright. In the end, she was slung over one of the guards' shoulders and carried from the room.

The jolting of the guard's gait was the final straw, and Cathryn welcomed the darkness that blanketed her vision and protected her from the overwhelming pain in her head.

* * *

Her first thought upon waking was that she'd drunk far too much alcohol. Her next thought was that it had been more than fifteen years since she'd had a hangover like this, since she was literally unable to get hangovers, all of which culminated in the rapid influx of what - or more precisely, _who_ \- was responsible for her still-considerable headache.

Cathryn lay perfectly still. Not too far away, she could hear quiet conversations and an odd tapping noise that she eventually recognized as someone - or some _ones_ \- typing.

When she finally opened her eyes a good fifteen minutes after waking, they alit on the door to her cell only briefly before settling on the large, very bright window at the far end of the room. She didn't know how she'd missed it the day before, but there it was, sunlight streaming through at an impressive slant.

If there was a window, there was a way out. All she had to do was get out of her cell and out the window fast enough that the soldiers wouldn't be able to respond in time.

Cathryn rolled to a sitting position. The metal band bit into her waist. She pulled up her shirt and considered it, and then looked once more at the cell door.

She sighed and let her shirt fall back into place.

"This is a terrible idea," she told herself. _It's also my_ only _idea_. "Fine," she grumbled. She reached out and knocked twice on the wall. When there was no reply, she knocked again.

"You awake?"

Cathryn shuffled to the bars, standing far enough away from their shared wall to be able to see most of Pietro's face. "I'll do it," she said tiredly.

"What?"

"I'll teach her."

A grin split his face, and her vanished between one beat of her heart and the next. His knocking on the wall was so rapid that it almost sounded like a single long drone.

"Shut up!" Wanda yelled. "I'm trying to concentrate!"

"She said yes!" Pietro was back at the bars, looking towards Wanda's cell.

Red-cloaked hands wrapped around the bars a few seconds later. "Griffin?"

Cathryn grimaced, but didn't correct her. She didn't particularly like Wanda, but she needed her; she didn't need to be friends with her, so there was no need for familiarity. "Yes."

She heard a quick mutter of something that could have been a prayer.

"Nothing with mind-magic," Cathryn called across Pietro's cell. "I don't need to lose any more hours."

"Days," Pietro corrected sheepishly with a glance towards his sister's hands. "Two." He looked as though he expected her to change her mind.

"It doesn't matter," Cathryn said. And really, what _did_ it matter. It wasn't like she didn't have time to spare.

Pietro grinned, relief stark in his expression. "It's good you're awake," he said quietly, moving towards the wall and lowering his voice. She approached the wall as well. "She's been worried that you wouldn't get better."

"Why?" Cathryn blurted out. She didn't like Wanda; she'd though the sentiment was mutual.

Even though she couldn't see him, Cathryn could picture Pietro's shrug. "She thinks that you're the only person who can help her." Cathryn scoffed quietly. "I agree."

"You could help her," she pointed out in a whisper.

"She won't listen to me." She felt a vibration in the wall and realized that he'd kicked it. "She wouldn't have gone through with it if I hadn't made her."

Cathryn frowned. "Gone through with what?" she asked slowly.

Pietro didn't answer, and Cathryn didn't get the chance to ask again.

Within ten minutes of agreeing to teach her, Cathryn stood next to Wanda in an entirely concrete room. "Are there any tools I can provide?" Strucker asked, eyes flicking towards the corner of the ceiling with the camera. He nodded at the camera, and then returned his attention to Cathryn. "Within reason, of course."

Cathryn rattled off the list that she'd settled on in the past few minutes. "A small glass ball, eight metal rings - two inch diameter - and some wire."

"No wire," Strucker said. "But the other items are fine."

They waited in silence - except for the occasional rustle fabric when the guards shifted positions - until, barely four minutes later, the door opened and a flushed young man entered.

"Sir," the man said, offering Strucker a plastic cup.

Strucker gestured towards Cathryn, and the young man gingerly passed it to her, making sure not to let his hand touch hers.

With a salute and a sharp, "Heil Hydra," to Strucker, the young man left as hurriedly as he'd arrived. Strucker and the soldiers followed in his footsteps a few seconds later.

"Well?" Wanda all but demanded as soon as the door was shut - and loudly bolted shut - behind the men. "What are those for?"

Cathryn glanced up at the camera. "What sort of training have you been doing?"

Wanda held out her hands and frowned. Slowly, a sphere of the red energy formed above her cupped palms.

Cathryn fished the marble out of the cup and then dumped the metal rings onto the ground. Wanda flinched at the unexpected noise, and the energy dissipated in a fraction of the time it'd taken to gather.

"Why did you do that?!"

"You need to be able to concentrate on other things at the same time, and you can't allow a sudden noise to ruin your work. Start again."

Cathryn crouched to collect the metal. The energy collated faster the second time. "Show me what you usually do."

Wanda began manipulating the red sphere. Whenever it touched the cement, a faint scorch mark appeared. She stretched the energy into long tendrils, sending them dancing through the air; fistfuls of the plasma were thrown at the walls, leaving shallow pock-marks behind. When Wanda began to smile, the energy crackling halfway up her arms, Cathryn shouted, "Catch!" and tossed two of the rings at Wanda.

One of them clattered to the ground; the other hovered barely and inch from the floor. A single strand of energy remained; the rest of the amassed substance had vanished in Wanda's distraction.

"Better," Cathryn allowed, wishing that she had access to her own magic. It would make this much easier. "Pick that one up from the ground."

"I can't. I can only do one - "

"Pick it up. The other option is that I keep on throwing these at you until you catch another one or drop the one you've already got. Your choice."

Wanda scowled, but said nothing. Slowly, the red haze around the floating ring bulged towards the ring on the floor. The energy was halfway to the second ring when it flickered, and then vanished, sending the other ring to join its fellow on the floor.

"Again. Catch."

Wanda didn't have enough time to gather her magic before the rings hit the floor.

"Again."

Only one clatter of metal on cement. Cathryn grinned. "Pick them up."

Hours later, when they were finally escorted back to their cells, Cathryn found a new set of clothes lain out on her bed. Despite her irritation - she didn't want the reward - Cathryn switched out the thin medical garb for the new outfit. She would blend in easier when she escaped if her clothes didn't look like they belonged in a hospital.

* * *

She was woken the next morning by a soldier carrying actual food, not the nutrient-dense slop she'd been fed for the past however-many-days she'd been there. It wasn't spectacularly prepared by any measure - Cathryn had made better poached eggs by the time she was five, and the toast was hardly deserving of the name - but it was a hundred times better than gruel-through-a-straw.

As she was marched back to the room alongside Wanda, Cathryn had to raise her estimation of Strucker. He was cleverer than she'd given him credit for - manipulative, almost, to make her appreciative for the clothes and the food. It also gave him something to punish her with; if she'd planned on staying long enough to get used to the upgraded meal plan, it would be disheartening to have the nutrient slop once more.

* * *

Wanda progressed at a phenomenal rate. By the third day, she was spinning six of the eight rings around her like leaves pulled into a dust devil.

It was a matter of two more days of practice to progress to holding the rings still in the air and directing the glass orb through them.

Each day of lessons resulted in luxuries. On the third day, Cathryn was allowed to take a bath; supervised, of course, but still a bath. After the fifth day, her bed was augmented with an additional pillow and a thicker blanket.

On the sixth day, Cathryn presented Wanda with a single metal ring and said, "Fold it flat." At Wanda's confused expressed, she explained, "Make a cut here - " she tapped a spot on the ring " - and then flatten the ring into a wire."

"I can't. It doesn't work like that. I can only explode things."

"So make a small explosion."

Wanda crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "I will try, but only if you teach me how to control the mind - "

"No," Cathryn cut her off. This wasn't the first time Wanda had brought up the topic of her telepathic abilities; the few people she'd experimented on in the past had never completely recovered. From what Cathryn understood of her recountings of her experiences in other people's minds, Wanda's power was similar to Legilimancy, but far more potent. Legilimens could see memories and sometimes thoughts or emotions; expert Legilimens could implant false memories or induce certain patterns of thought, but only through vague impressions or as dreams. Above all, a Legilimens had to be painstakingly precise in their work - nothing could be left to chance.

Wanda's power could do everything a Legilimens could do, but also allowed for the subject's own input. A Legilimens had to know their victim's greatest fear before forcing them to live though a waking nightmare; Wanda didn't need to know. She could implant the idea of fear, and the unlucky person would have their imagination fuel a nightmare beyond any that Wanda might dream up.

Cathryn wasn't going to let Wanda anywhere near her mind, and Wanda didn't seem inclined to force the matter lest she incur Strucker's anger. "If you apply the finesse you've learned in the past few days, you should find that you have more control over that part of your power too, but I'm not going to let you practice on me."

Wanda stared at Cathryn a moment longer, and then huffed. "Fine. Tell me again what you want me to do?"

* * *

Two days later, Cathryn knew that Wanda was ready - it only remained to be seen if she was _willing_ to help Cathryn escape.

She resolved to ask her in the training room. Cathryn knew where the camera was located in the concrete room; she'd yet to catch a glimpse of the camera - or even cameras - the she knew had to be in or around her cell.

The soldier who typically came by with her breakfast never showed. A seed of unease niggled at the back of her mind, but Cathryn wrote it off as some sort of miscommunication, or just an honest mistake.

When the soldiers collected her later in the morning, however, Wanda didn't join them, and the unease bloomed into doubt. Cathryn slowed down in front of Wanda's cell, but soldier behind her shoved her forward, gently but still with enough force that Cathryn knew they weren't going to be collecting the other witch.

"Where are we going?" None of the four guards answered. "Can any of you speak English?" Again, no answer. "I don't believe that you can't - I know for a fact that everyone under the age of sixty in Novi Grad has at least a basic understanding of English, and unless you're just a bunch of lost farmer's sons - "

"Baron von Strucker wants to see you." The guard just behind her spoke - in an American accent. Cathryn nearly tripped over her own feet as she began to turn. A strong hand on the back of her neck stopped her. "Just shut up and walk."

Cathryn shut up for nearly half a minute. "Why are you here?"

"Shut up."

"Not that Americans are automatically anti-psychopaths, because I'm sure there's a cult following for psychopaths somewhere in that ridiculously oversized country, but really, Hydra? If you have to work for a terrorist agency, you could at least show some self-respect and choose something like - "

If she hadn't gotten her hands up in time, Cathryn would have broken her nose on the wall.

"Watch where you're going," the American growled as he shoved her back to the middle of the corridor. "And if you don't shut the fuck up, next time you're clumsy it'll be on a staircase."

One of the soldiers in front of Cathryn shifted uncertainly. "Said no harm." He shrank under the American's angry glare.

"Move!" the American barked.

Strucker was speaking Russian to his computer when Cathryn entered the office. By the time she was forced into the same chair as last time, Strucker had the laptop closed and sported a pleasant smile.

"You have done very well with the female Maximoff," Strucker began bluntly, still with the polite smile. "I hope you have enjoyed the gifts that your cooperation has earned?" He didn't wait for a response. "Now that she has learned what you are able to teach her, there is no need for any more lessons."

"I'm not - " Cathryn tried to cut in, but Strucker ignored her interruption.

"My scientists have used the time to design an experiment in which you play an integral part. It is not painful, I promise." His smile broadened, and Cathryn was reminded uncomfortably of Umbridge just before the toadish woman had handed her the Blood Quill.

"I won't," she said firmly.

Strucker's smile _changed_. Before, it had been a mask; now, it was real, and the anticipation in it made the back of her neck prickle. "That is unfortunate. As you have seen, it is easier for both of us when you cooperate." He raised a hand from the desk and signaled the soldiers.

Cathryn bolted from the chair, aiming for the window. Her instincts were screaming at her to get as far away as possible; even the strong probability of dying from having her ribs splintered and her neck constricted to the point of crushing her esophagus was better than whatever _experiment_ Strucker's scientists had cooked up.

She got as far as the desk before she was tackled to the ground. "Move, and I'll blow your brains out."

Damn American.

"I need her alive, Agent."

"It's a tranq, sir."

"Excellent work. Sedate her, and make sure she doesn't wake up."

Cathryn bucked, but without magic, she was just a woman, and neither exceptionally large nor strong. Two more soldiers joined the American, and any chance of her escaping vanished.

The gun pressed against her thigh; the muzzle jerked as the gun made a faint _pop_. Her leg felt like it'd been hit with a tiny but extremely dense Bludger.

Everything went fuzzy. She reached instinctively for the mental trigger for her transformation; her skin rippled in expectation of change, and she heard dim shouts as the hands vanished for an instance, and -

* * *

Cold. There was only one source of such bone-deep chill. They weren't close enough yet to make her hear her mother's dying screams, but they would be soon unless she stopped them. "Ex - expecto - expecto - "

Bony hands gripped her wrists.

"No - Sirius! Sirius!"

Burning warmth stabbed at the side of her neck.

"Si - ri - "

* * *

This cell was different. It was smaller; the stone was darker; impossibly, the bed was less comfortable than the table in the science room had been.

Most of all, it was cold. Her hair had been shaved, the blankets were insufficient, and her clothes thin.

She wondered if this was what Azkaban was like. Logically, she knew Azkaban was worse - it had dementors, so it had to be a hundred times worse - but this had to be as close as it was possible to get.

* * *

It was impossible to keep track of days. Even the cells of Azkaban had windows: the better to freeze the prisoners with wind and rain from the North Sea.

Cathryn was able to piece together how long she'd been awake from a whispered conversation by two of the scientists who'd come with her injection.

"What if he finds out we were late?"

"He won't. It's fifteen minutes - that's, what, one point four percent? Statistically insignificant."

It took her muddled mind far too long to make the mathematical calculations, but every second spent puzzling over the fractions was one more second she wasn't fighting to not fall asleep, because sleep only brought nightmares the likes of which she'd never seen.

* * *

Cathryn was no stranger to bad dreams. Some of her first memories were of waking up in the cupboard, crying and frightened of bright green light for reasons she hadn't understood at the time. Later, bodies were added to the panoply of terror. Cedric, Sirius, Ginny; Dumbledore, Voldemort, Fred. At least she understood why they were there.

These dreams were utterly alien. There was no explanation for them, aside from the sheer mind-numbing horror of bleak stone, an aeonian void, and insidious chill.

Awake, she only had to deal with the perpetual frigidity.

* * *

Every eighteen hours, the scientists came with the glowing blue syringe and a tube of nutrient-mush.

If she fought, she was knocked out by soldiers and the nourishment - she refused to call it food, because to do so was an insult to even the meanest of meals - was withheld.

If she sat quietly while they shoved the needle into her lower back, she was allowed to eat.

She fought the first two times; she'd woken screaming her throat raw both times.

After that, she listlessly allowed the scientists to direct her to the proper position for the injection.

It was easier to stay awake when she'd eaten.

* * *

Days passed. Occasionally, her exhaustion overcame her and she slept for short snatches, waking up screaming after no more than two hours.

Awareness blurred into dreams, and at times she wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep.

Once she dreamed that Pietro and Wanda stood outside her cell, the door open and inviting. Another time she was awake, on the precipice of a gaping chasm filled with icy stars, when the scientists came and filled their syringe with frigid starlight and pumped it into her blood.

She'd never thought of stars as cold before.

* * *

Every so often, she was taken out of the cell for testing.

The scientists never took her very far - just a few yards down the stone corridor - but the trip always left Cathryn shaking and weak.

The tests were more painful than the injections. She was electrocuted, burned, drowned, and choked. Once, they sat a massive bucket of water on her chest until she couldn't breathe. They said it was to wake any mutations in her genome; Cathryn only vaguely aware of what a genome was, and couldn't think of why hers would have a mutation. She was perfectly normal, Aunt Petunia said so.

Once, when the testing took place almost directly after an injection, it wasn't scientists who tested her, but the rotting corpses of her friends and family, even those she had last seen alive. She cried for hours, and the eventually the corpses took her back to her cell.

* * *

Her head felt clearer than it'd been for weeks. Cathryn uncurled herself from the corner she'd been backed into by the gaping maw of … she wasn't sure what it'd been, but it'd been sufficiently terrifying to make her hide in the most protected place in her cell.

She shuffled weakly to the cell door, pressing her ear to the door, wishing she could see something - anything. She sighed, and was already pulling away from the door when she heard rapid footsteps.

Cathryn sank onto her bed just as the lock clicked, and then the door opened. The scientists didn't waste any time. They seemed worried - her mind flickered: if the scientists were worried, they might not be as careful as usual. She readied herself to resist them.

"Put zhem on," the shorter of the two scientists commanded as four soldiers filed into the room. Familiar leather straps were procured.

Cathryn sat still as they put them on. She was too tired to do anything else - against a pair of unsuspecting scientists, she'd had a fraction of a chance of success. Against four soldiers? A few weeks ago she might have fought. Now she was - Cathryn flinched at the thought, but it was true. She was defeated. After everything it'd been through, it'd taken a bunch of muggles and some glowing blue medicine to beat her; Voldemort would've been aghast at being outdone by muggles.

She smiled to herself at the thought of Voldemort's embarrassment, and then relished the mental pictures of what he would've done to the muggles if it'd been him here.

The soldiers moved efficiently, strapping her to the bed. When they were done, they moved away, only for the taller scientist to motion them back. He gave them a command in German, and the soldiers spread out. One of them held down her shoulders; another braced her head. The other two took her legs, one at her hips and the other at her shins.

As the scientists moved closer, uncapping the syringe of glowing serum, Cathryn immediately regretted not fighting.

"Please - "

The shorter scientist reached out, hands protected by purple gloves, and spread her eyelid. He put four drops of liquid from a nondescript white bottle onto her eye and then began to count.

"Please, don't!"

They ignored her. At 'zwanzig', the first scientist nodded to the other. Cathryn found herself holding her breath and squeezing her eyes shut as the needle descended. Only one eye closed. She tried to move her other eye, but it didn't respond.

It was disconcerting, watching the needle blur as her eye began to water.

She felt the pressure of the needle against her eye, and then an odd sensation as the needle sank into the inner part of her eyeball. More pressure, this time from inside her eye as the liquid was expelled from the syringe at a slow but steady rate.

By the time the scientist withdrew the needle, Cathryn had almost grown accustomed to it's being there. It was only a few second later before whatever drug they'd given her wore off; she squeezed her second eyelid shut, blinking furiously and wishing she could move her eye, just to make sure it still worked.

After a brief exchange of words with the soldiers, the scientists left. The soldiers lingered for ten minutes, continuing to hold her still, and then exited. They didn't remove the straps.

Cathryn waited for the first effects of the drug to kick in - the odd tingling in her extremities, and the feeling that she was being watched - but they didn't appear.

She lay on the bed for a long time. When she was able to move her eye - maybe five minutes after the soldiers had left - she rolled it experimentally; nothing seemed out of order. She wished she could use her arm to rub at her eye, to feel if anything felt wrong. Hopefully when the scientists returned, they'd take the straps with them.

In the absence of the normal onset of nightmarish visions, Cathryn allowed her exhaustion to pull her into what was, for the first time in more than two weeks, the safety of sleep.

* * *

A surge of electricity crackled over her magic like a second skin. The novelty of feeling anything with her magic after so much time of nothing - because not even Wanda's peculiar brand of magic had excited hers like this - jolted Cathryn awake.

The scientists hadn't returned, which she was happy about, but that also meant that she didn't get fed, which, after at least a day of no food (depending on how long she'd been asleep), she was less happy about.

"Hello?" She couldn't hear anything, but that was no reason for -

"Hello?"

"Pietro?" Cathryn turned her head towards the door, wishing that it was made of bars like the door to her previous cell.

"And Wanda," came a more feminine voice. "Your _friends_ are attacking us."

"My fri - " Cathryn's heart rate sped up and her mouth went dry. "The Avengers."

"Yes," Pietro said quickly. "We are going to fight them."

"Don't - you'll just get - "

"We can match them," Wanda cut her off. "It is what we have been training for."

Cathryn's brain scrambled to process the information. She'd only known the twins for a handful of days, and yet their declaration felt like betrayal. "Why?" she finally managed to ask. "Why fight for Hydra?"

"Stark," was the hissed reply, from both of them.

"He is the reason our parents are dead," Wanda added, her voice just barely loud enough for Cathryn to hear. "One of his bombs collapsed our building while we ate dinner. Our parents died. A second shell landed in our kitchen. We stared at it for three days, waiting for it to go off with every shift of rubble as our neighbors dug us out."

"I'm sorry," Cathryn offered.

"We are too." Pietro sounded rushed. "If we win, we will return, and you will take us to our cousin."

"You should escape. Don't come back. If you can get away from Hydra, do it."

"They are leaving also," Wanda cut in.

"We will come back, or we will tell one of your friends that you are here."

"We have to go. Now, Pietro."

"Don't kill them!" Cathryn called out. For two long seconds, there was no reply, and she thought they'd left.

And then, "We will not kill them," Pietro agreed.

"Thank you." There was no reply, and she knew that they were gone. "Don't die," she whispered.

A few minutes later, the entire building shuddered.

Five minutes passed, and then ten more.

Light, rapid footsteps ran past the door. "Hey!" The footsteps stopped, and then raced closed.

"Cathryn."

She closed her eyes. Of all the Avengers - but of course it was Steve. She swallowed. "Yeah."

"Hold on, I'm coming in. Keep back from the door."

"Not a problem," she muttered sarcastically, and then added in a louder voice, "I'm good."

The door buckled. A fist-shaped bulge took up most of the middle. It took Steve two more punches to crumple the door enough for it to lose its integrity and fall to the ground with a metallic thud.

Steve stepped over the door with his shield up, eyes flicking left and right and up before he slid the shield into its holder. "I got eyes. We'll be clear in five."

He was at her side in seconds, fingers working nimbly at the straps. She tried to catch his eyes, but he wasn't looking at her.

"Steve - "

"Later."

"Can I just - "

He lowered his voice and said, "We'll talk when we're alone." He tapped his ear, and Cathryn's eyes widened.

"Oh." As soon as he undid the straps around her wrists, she helping, working at the strap around her waist.

Steve helped her sit up when the last strap was undone. Her head spun at the change in elevation after so many hours of laying in the same position.

"What's this?" His finger skated over the metal band around her neck.

"Insurance," she grimaced, ignoring the way his touch left her skin hypersensitive. "If I transform, there's no guarantee the iron will transform with me. I rather like my neck the size it is."

His jaw tightened, and Cathryn could nearly see the effort it was taking Steve to keep his words to himself. "Can you walk?"

In answer, Cathryn stood. She made it four steps before Steve caught up to her and slung her arm over his shoulders, even though he had to hunch down a little for her to be able to reach. "I can walk."

"We need to move faster. Clint's been shot, and we need to - "

"Right, never mind. Do what you need to."

He swept her into his arms and strode easily from the room. Cathryn remembered the last time he'd carried her - that time, she'd been a more active participant, with her arms around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist -

She shook her head. "How bad is it?"

"Non-fatal."

"Good. That's - shit."

She heard a tinny, "Language!" from Steve's earpiece.

"Was that - ?"

"Ignore him," Steve muttered, slowing down at a corner. "What's wrong?" he added once he'd checked for Hydra soldiers.

"They have my things."

"Your things?"

"My wands. My suit. All of it."

Steve slowed down. "You guys got all of that?" There was a chorus of 'yes's from his earpiece. "Clint? How bad are you?"

"I'll live." His voice was tight.

"We'll come back for it," Natasha said firmly.

"It could be dangerous," Stark's voice sounded louder than the other's had. "What if they make something from it?"

"They can't." Cathryn prodded Steve to get him to move faster. "They never were able to get into my trunk, and they don't dare do anything more than a few basic scans on the wand that they've got at risk of ruining it. I agree with Natasha. I'll come back for it."

Steve snorted derisively, and Cathryn paused. That wasn't a sound she'd ever heard from him. "Steve?" she asked, at the same time as Stark asked, "Cap?"

"We take off in four minutes," he said as they exited the building; he broke into a fast job. Cathryn closed her eyes against the glare of the sun. It'd been so long since she'd been outside that she'd forgotten how good the sunlight felt on her skin.

She only opened her eyes when she felt the coolness of shadows sliding across her skin. Steve was on high alert, eyes flicking from tree to tree in search of hidden enemies. There were a few scratches on his helmet, and his chin had some dirt smudged on it, but aside from that, he seemed unharmed.

"I - " she began, but Steve cut her off.

"Thor," he greeted, his footsteps changing from the quick crackle of dead leaves to hollow thumps.

Cathryn looked away from Steve in time to catch a glimpse of the exterior of a small jet, Thor standing in the doorway, before the god turned and preceded the two of them inside.

"Put her there," Natasha commanded, nodding to a padded bench just next to where Hawkeye was lain out.

"I'd rather sit," Cathryn said, catching a glimpse of the straps that held Hawkeye's legs to the bench. "There's really nothing wrong with me."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, but only said, "Find a spot, and stay there." She stalked to the front of the jet, joining Stark in the cockpit.

Hawkeye was less tactful. "You look like a good wind would push you over." He frowned as Steve carried her past his bench.

Steve didn't set her down until he could deposit her directly in one of the four chairs just to the side of the benches. Dr. Banner nodded at her in welcome before returning to his apparently troublesome thoughts.

"We're up!" Stark warned from the cockpit. "Three, two, one!"

Cathryn was glad for the chair as gravity shoved her down. Behind her, she could hear Thor and Steve staggering slightly as they adjusted their pace to the increased pressure.

When the jet leveled out, Cathryn turned in her seat to watch the others. Steve had taken off his helmet and was inspecting the Clint's field-dressing while Thor and Natasha watched.

Thor caught her eye, and after a moment of staring, inclined his head towards her. She gave him a wan smile in return. He frowned slightly and murmured something to Steve, who glanced over at her, nodded, and replied in just as quiet a voice. Natasha blinked and looked from Cathryn, to a glowing blue box by the ramp, and then back to Thor.

Cathryn saw her lips form the words, "Are you sure?"

Thor nodded, and Cathryn turned her head to stare at the box. The shade of the blue glow was familiar, and she squinted at it, trying to remember -

A large body blocked her view. Thor sat in the chair next to her. "How do you fare, Lady Griffin?"

Cathryn shrugged. "Well enough." She coughed lightly. "Do you have any - "

"Here." Natasha offered Cathryn a bottle of water and a protein bar. "Go easy on the food. Start with a bite, and see how you feel."

"Yeah!" Stark called from the front, "I don't need any vomit on my jet!"

"Thanks," Cathryn said to Natasha, accepting the food and water.

The woman shrugged and turned away, heading for Dr. Banner. Despite the long-awaited food and water in her hands, Cathryn was momentarily distracted by Steve as he moved to inspect the glowing box more closely.

It was more difficult to open the water bottle than Cathryn would ever admit, and she was on the verge of taking her first sip when she knew why the color from the box was familiar. She lowered the bottle and met Thor's eyes. "What is it? In the box - what is it?" Her voice rose as denial set in.

"The box holds Loki's scepter," Thor admitted.

Cathryn's hand shook as he brought the water bottle to her mouth and drank. A little trickled down her chin, and she wiped it off on her sleeve. "What will it do to me?" she asked after taking another sip.

Thor looked troubled. "It is difficult to know," he said at last. "If we knew its provenance, perhaps we could speculate, but its origins are as yet uncertain."

"What about your brother? Won't he know?" Behind Thor, Steve frowned in warning.

Thor flinched, nearly imperceptibly, but just enough that Cathryn could see his pain. "Loki is dead."

She froze in shock for a few seconds. "I'm sorry. He was…an interesting person."

With a dry chuckle, Thor agreed, "Yes. He was a most interesting person." He nodded towards the protein bar in her hand. "You should eat that sustenance. You will need to be strong so that you can smite your enemies." He turned to look at the box containing the scepter. "I apologize on the behalf of Asgard for your troubles."

Cathryn shrugged, trying not to get angry at the protein bar's stubborn wrapping. "Better the poison you know than the poison you don't know."

"Is it not better to not be poisoned at all?" Thor frowned.

Cathryn chuckled. "I suppose." She glared at the bar, and then thrust it at Thor. "Will you please open this?"

A noise from the back of the jet caught her attention, and she looked up in time to see Steve glaring at the scepter before turning his back to them all.

"Ah. It is like Pop-Tarts." A second later, Thor presented her with the newly-opened bar.

"Thank you."

"It was my pleasure," Thor replied gravely, and then stood with a polite, "My apologies," to join Steve by the scepter's box.

Something soft brushed past her arm. Cathryn frowned at the blanket, and followed its trajectory back to Hawkeye. "You look cold," he said.

"Thanks." She grabbed the blanket with her foot, and then nearly fell as she stood to wrap it around herself.

She'd only just settled back in when Natasha called out, "Thor, report on the Hulk."

"The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims."

Dr. Banner groaned, and Cathryn gave a strained smile at the look of disbelief on Natasha's face that quickly hardened into a promise of pain.

Thor backtracked. "Eh - but not the screams of the dead, of course. No, no, wounded screams. Mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and, uh, gout."

Behind her, she heard a stifled snort. Hawkeye was pressing his lips together and staring at the ceiling in an effort not to laugh.

"Hey, Banner, Dr. Cho is on her way in from Seoul," Stark called from the cockpit. "Is it okay if she sets up in your lab?"

The reluctant amusement faded from Dr. Banner's face as he turned to reply, "Uh, yeah, she knows her way around."

"Thanks," Tony said, and then lowered his voice so that Cathryn didn't catch what his words. "Jarvis, take the wheel."

"Yes sir." Cathryn flinched, staring at the ceiling where the voice had come from. "Approach vector is locked."

"Who is that?"

"You don't remember Jarvis?" Stark asked as he passed behind her. "My AI."

She frowned, and then shook her head. "Did we meet?"

Stark nodded. "Sit tight, Merlin. Another hour or two and you'll be able to clean up." He continued on his path towards Thor and Steve.

Cathryn broke off a piece of the protein bar and tentatively ate it. It tasted better than the nutrition slop that Hydra had been feeding her, but not by much. She wondered if the two foods were at all related - they certainly weren't anything near as good as actual food.

"As soon as we find out what else this has been used for." Steve's voice broke her out of her musings. "And I'm not just talking about weapons." He met her eyes for a fraction of a second before continuing. "Since when is Strucker capable of human enhancement?"

"Banner and I will give it the once-over before it goes back to Asgard," Stark agreed. "Hey, magic-fingers, did you see anything with this thing when you were their guest?"

"Stark - " Steve began.

"It's fine." Cathryn frowned, and then shook her head. "I didn't see anything to indicate the scepter's presence until the injections started.

"The what?" Stark and Dr. Banner asked at the same time.

"They were experimenting on her," Natasha stated. "What else do you think would make her look like she'd gone on a walk with death?"

"And the collar?" Stark asked, scrutinizing Cathryn.

"A precaution," she said.

"It makes it difficult for her to transform into the griffin," Steve supplied.

"Why? Does that metal protect against magic?" Stark asked excitedly.

"No. I'm just not sure it won't choke me to death. My clothes make the transformation, but since I didn't put them on, I'm not technically _wearing_ them, and," she shrugged in conclusion.

"Ah. Well, that'd be a bummer," Stark agreed, turning back to Thor, "If you don't mind, of course. Are you sticking around for the party?"

Cathryn blinked at the sudden change of topic. "Yes, yes, of course. A victory should be honored with revels," Thor agreed, reaching out to stroke the case of the scepter.

"Yeah, who doesn't love revels? Captain?"

Cathryn couldn't catch Steve's response, but his nodding confirmed his presence.

Tony nodded once, and then turned towards the rest of the Avengers and Cathryn. "Romanoff? Banner?"

"I live there, Stark," Dr. Banner pointed out.

"Good form to ask. Romanoff?"

"I can find the time. I'll make sure Clint shows."

"Black - or is it Potter? Black-Potter? Potter-Black?"

Cathryn hid a yawn in her blanket. "Black. I left Potter behind a long time ago."

"Couldn't have been that long, miss not-legal-to-drink."

Cathryn shifted slightly in her seat. She had been wondering if any of the Avengers were going to comment on her age. With a mask, it'd been easier to pretend she was older, but Natasha already knew something was off, and Steve - well, she wasn't going to think about the conversation that awaited them until she had to.

"I'm legal in Britain," she said at last.

"In America too, according to your files. You're only ten years younger than me," Tony said, all traces of humor gone. "Either you got some witchy voodoo going on, or…" he frowned. "Or there's definitely some witchy voodoo going on."

"I - " Cathryn glanced at Steve, but he was still frowning at the scepter. Thor, on the other hand, was inspecting her with more intensity than even Natasha had managed back in the Butter-and-Crumpets. "Sure," she agreed. "It's voodoo."

None of the Avengers seemed to buy her story - rather, Stark's story - but none of them pressed her for the truth either. "So?" Stark asked. "Party?"

She frowned. "Where am I going to be staying? I doubt it's safe to go back to my café, and - "

"You'll be staying with me," Stark interrupted. "I've got your room all set up, per Romanoff's instructions."

Cathryn and Steve both turned to stare at Natasha, who shrugged. "I knew you'd turn up. He lives in - "

"Own! I own it!" Stark interjected.

" - Avenger's Tower. We all have a room there, though only Stark and Banner live there full-time."

"And you need medical attention," Dr. Banner added. "Even if you decide not to stay, you'll get the best medical treatment available."

Cathryn hesitated. She didn't want to step out into public so soon - if ever, really, one society praising her was more than enough, even if their attitude towards her had changed rather radically in the past year - but she couldn't give away her friends by asking Stark to drop her off in Bulgaria or Devon.

"Alright," she agreed. It would be nice to have a place to get back on her feet, with people she trusted both not to hurt her and not to be hurt by her in case something went wrong. And she needed to stop moving for at least twenty-four hours, so that the Hallows could catch up to her. "But I'm not wearing anything that Natasha buys for me."

Natasha sent her a sly smirk. "Looks like you'll be living in the nude."

Cathryn chose to take another bite of the energy bar instead of responding, but couldn't help reveling in the air of camaraderie that Natasha, and the others, were sharing with her.

* * *

After escaping a very persistent nurse whose name she could neither remember nor pronounce, Cathryn allowed Jarvis to guide her to what was apparently her room. She declined the assistance of both Natasha and Thor, walking the entire way by herself (it took her ten minutes and left her more tired than she thought was entirely appropriate, but she'd done it on her own, so that was some small victory).

The shower was heavenly, even if she'd had to sit for part of it, although seeing her reflection for the first time was startling. Her hair was barely an inch long, and already promised to be extremely messy as soon as it gained another few centimeters of length. Her skin was pale to the point of sallow, her left eye was bloodshot from whatever the scientists had injected, and her fights against falling asleep had left her with circles under her eyes so dark that she looked like a panda. Thankfully, the mirror fogged up before she could take a closer inspection of exactly how bad she looked - her reflection left no question as to why the Avengers hadn't immediately sat her down and interrogated her about her imprisonment.

As promised, the overly-large closet and bureau were well stocked, and Cathryn was pleased to see that, no matter her glib comment earlier, Natasha had mainly supplied clothes of the sort that Cathryn normally wore. _She's a spy_ , Cathryn told herself as she slowly dressed herself in a t-shirt and loose flannel pajama bottoms. _She probably spied on you more than once, especially with Steve hanging about so often_.

The bed swallowed her eagerly, and with only a modicum of dread for possible nightmares, Cathryn finally allowed her heavy eyelids to close.

* * *

Although she woke twice from bad dreams, Cathryn was exhausted enough to fall back asleep with relative ease. The third time she woke, she lay still for several minutes. When she opened her eyes, the Deathly Hallows filled her vision, stacked neatly on the pillow next to her.

Relief rushed through her, and Cathryn gently stroked the Invisibility Cloak. "Glad you could make it," she whispered.

Getting out of bed was more difficult than she'd anticipated. Not only was she supremely comfortable, but her body ached in places she hadn't known could hurt. In the end, though, she motivated herself with the thought of coffee, and managed to dress herself in the least Natasha-looking of the clothes. Jarvis guided her first to the kitchen, where a pot of coffee had long since cooled, and then, reheated coffee in one hand and a blueberry bagel in the other, to the level with the labs.

Stark and Banner were frowning at a holographic image of something far beyond Cathryn's technological knowledge. Jarvis announced her arrival.

Banner took one look at her, and ushered Cathryn to the nearest stool.

"How's Sleeping Beauty?" Stark asked, still squinting at the projection. "Any longer and I thought I was going to have to order you a cryo-tube."

"I'm fine." She blew on her coffee, wishing it'd cool down faster. "How long did I sleep?"

"Close to thirty hours," Banner supplied. "It's nearly noon. Do you need anything?"

Cathryn shook her head, and Banner returned to Stark's side. For long minutes, Cathryn watched the two scientists work, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. It took her ten minutes and half a cup of coffee to track the source of her wariness to the glowing blue staff set up on the table with the most amount of clutter. A holographic screen orbited the length of the staff.

"What are you doing to it?" she asked at last.

The scientists glanced at her, and then at each other. Banner shook his head, and Stark shrugged.

"The stone codes some sort of program," Stark said. "We're trying to decipher it." He took a swig from his silvery mug and grimaced slightly. "Nothing important," he added with a suave smile.

Cathryn hid her disbelief in the dregs of her coffee. "What are the others doing?" she asked when she resurfaced.

"Jarvis?" Stark prompted. "Where's the Team at?"

"Sir, Lady Black, and Dr. Banner are in sir's lab. Mr. Barton and Miss Rushmore are in the sparring chamber. Lord Thor is in London. Captain Rogers is - " after three seconds of silence, Jarvis continued " - pardon the delay, Captain Rogers appears to be on the back fire-escape of the Butter-and-Crumpets Café."

Cathryn drew a shaky breath. "Thank you, Jarvis." She frowned at her half-eaten bagel, and sighed.

"Is there - " Banner began, just as Cathryn said, "I suppose I should - "

Banner motioned for her to continue. With a startled and slightly suspicious glance at Stark, who was being uncharacteristically silent on the matter of herself and Steve, Cathryn asked, "When will you want to hear about what happened?"

Stark frowned as his screen flashed red, and then turned away from it. "Now is good."

Cathryn swallowed, but nodded. This could hardly be any worse than recounting the Third Task for Dumbledore and Sirius had been. But… "I'd rather just do it once, so if everyone could - "

"Here." Stark lazily tapped a few buttons on the holo-screen to his left. An image of her face sprang up. She blinked, and her image blinked as well.

"Alright." She peered into her cup, and briefly wished she'd thought to fill up before. Even if she didn't drink any more coffee, its warmth through the ceramic would have been comforting. "Where should I start?"

"How about what's with you and Spangles?" Stark suggested. Banner set his pen down with a pointed glare at Stark.

"After SHIELD fell," Banner said, pulling a stool next to her and sitting down. "What did you do?"

"I went north, to Canada." Starting so long ago was easy. Nothing bad or painful there. "I hid in the forests over winter, and then headed west. After I got to the Pacific, I turned around and went towards Florida."

Once she'd begun, it was easy to keep talking, just as had happened with the aftermath of the Third Task. She began lying at her first mention of the Krum's; she purposefully referred to them as 'school friends', citing them only because it was at their request that she'd been in Sokovia.

Although Banner mostly stayed quiet throughout her story, offering the occasional sympathetic pat and, once, a growl so deep that it seemed to belong to a man much larger than him, Stark was a surprisingly good listener. He spoke only to ask questions to clarify certain details, and didn't make a single snide remark, not even when Cathryn admitted to having helped Wanda hone her powers.

"They're just kids," Cathryn finished. "They're looking for a way to help protect their country, and they promised not to kill any of you."

"Doesn't mean they didn't mess with us though," Stark muttered, face darkening. One of his screens beeped, and both he and Banner moved towards it, although Banner stopped halfway off his stool and leaned towards Cathryn.

"If you need someone to listen to the parts you haven't told us, Natasha's a pretty good listener, and there's nothing you can say that she hasn't already seen, heard, or done herself."

Cathryn nodded her head in thanks, and Banner strode over to join Stark at the screen, pointed at something, and was fairly shoved out of the way as Stark scrambled to adjust whatever wasn't right.

She watched them for ten more minutes before heading back to her room. For a long minute, she stared out the window at the city spread out below. Steve was somewhere out there - not just somewhere, she knew where he was.

 _If I was a better person, I'd go out there and join him_ , Cathryn thought. She considered tracking him down - she was familiar enough with the Butter-and-Crumpets to navigate there by air, and a quick Disillusionment Charm would prevent anyone from seeing her - but decided against it. When he was ready, he knew where she was. Steve wouldn't make her come to him; it wasn't in his character.

Instead, she went to the bed and pulled the Wand from under her pillow. She frowned. Earlier, she'd written off the odd sensation as mere sensitivity, a side effect from having not held a wand for so long. Now, though, Cathryn wasn't sure. The Elder Wand had never sat well in her hand; it always seemed to want _more_ , to push and pull at her magic rather than act as an open circuit with it.

It wasn't doing that today. There was no subtle tug, no itching desire to cast magic.

Cathryn gingerly raised the wand. "Lumos." The tip lit up, slightly bluer than it usually was, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. She shook the light out with a silent, _Nox_ , and, out loud, said, "Expecto Patronum." Prongs coalesced before her, appearing as expectant as a misty figure could look. "Geminio." A second, slightly dimmer, Prongs separated from the first. She pressed the tip of her wand against her temple, concentrated, and then slowly drew the tip away. The memory dissipated into the ether of the first Prongs, who then shot up through the ceiling as a mere streak of light, well on its way to Britain.

Cathryn repeated the procedure with the second Patronus, although it took longer because of the second memory-instruction she added. She'd never given a single Patronus two messages, but with luck, the magic would hold.

* * *

Steve found her just after five that evening, curled up on one of Stark's many sofas. He sat on the sofa across from hers, and watched as she silently directed the wispy blue butterflies she'd conjured to fly in a tight spiral above the coffee table.

When he cleared his throat, she vanished the butterflies with a wave of the Elder Wand. He paused at the display of magic, and then said, "So, you're thirty-four?"

Cathryn couldn't stop the slightly hysterical giggle. "Really? That's what you're going to go with? My _age_? Because if anyone should understand not looking like they should for their age, I'd have thought it would be you."

Steve's jaw tightened. "I thought it would be an easy place to start. Your video didn't explain anything about you, and I figured asking about your age was better than getting angry that you told Natasha who you were but not me. You didn't tell _me_."

"Natasha figured it out on her own!" Cathryn snapped. "As soon as she saw me, she knew." Steve stood and strode to the window, arms crossed behind his back in a military fashion.

A minute passed, and then two. "I never wanted this," Cathryn said quietly. Steve didn't react, so she continued. "Given my druthers, I'd be married by now, with two or three kids, but there was a…an accident a few months before my eighteenth birthday. It took me a few years to catch on, but when I realized I looked the same," she shrugged. "Leaving was better than being called a freak."

"Is that where you got your powers?"

"I've always been a witch. I was born like this."

"Mutant?"

Cathryn was silent for a long time, vacillating between telling the truth and lying. Steve didn't press, and in the end, that was the deciding factor. "No." The word was surprisingly light, despite being so very illegal. "My parents were witches as well."

Whatever Steve had been expecting, that wasn't it. He half-turned, met her eyes, and then glanced away. "Your sister one too?"

"Yes. But she's not my sister, just an old friend." She sighed. _In for a penny, in for a pound_. "Most of my old contacts are witches - everyone, actually, except my cousin. _He_ 's about as normal as they come." She snorted derisively. "Anything else you want to know?"

"No." His tone was final, and Cathryn took it for a dismissal. She was nearly to the flight of stairs leading to the hallway when he spoke again. "Actually, yes. Just one more thing. Did you love me?"

Cathryn stopped, but didn't turn around, mind flashing back to how elated and full and _whole_ she'd felt whenever Steve had shown up at her door. With a huff, she ran her hands through her shorn hair, and then said, "I told myself I didn't. Now, I'm not so sure."

She fled.

* * *

Natasha found her a few hours after noon the next day. "Eat."

Obediently, Cathryn ate the plain sandwich, watching as Natasha ruffled through her closet. The spy emerged with a long black shirt and a pair of heels after a few minutes.

"You've certainly got Rogers tense. He's gone through six punching bags today and is working on number seven. Try this on."

"What for? And where's the rest of the outfit?"

Natasha's eyes narrowed. "This is the outfit. And it's your punishment."

"My _punishment_?" Cathryn dropped the last few bites of the sandwich onto the plate and pushed it aside. "For what?"

"You're a terrible liar. You know exactly what for."

"Actually, I'm quite good at lying," Cathryn lied, standing up.

"Now you're just being obtuse." Natasha sent Cathryn a polite smile that nonetheless made Cathryn swallow nervously. "Put it on, or I'll put it on for you."

"I have a wand," Cathryn said, inching towards the bedside table.

Natasha dangled a taser from the hand not holding the dress.

Cathryn glanced towards her wand. The chances of her getting it and setting up a shield before Natasha either tackled her or shot her (she didn't _think_ Natasha would tase her, but she wasn't positive she wouldn't either) were slim. She sighed, and shot Natasha a pleading smile. "I'm too pale for black right now."

Natasha arched an eyebrow.

Cathryn put on the dress.

Over the course of the next several hours, Cathryn tried on eight more dresses, five pairs of shoes (none with less than three inches of heel, much to her dismay), and was politely threatened into demonstrating her knowledge of cosmetic charms, including a hair-growth spell that added six inches of length to her hair (more than that would require a potion or a professional), whereupon Natasha forced her into the bathroom.

When Cathryn emerged, freshly showered, Natasha had already changed into her own party dress.

"Why can't I wear something like that?" Cathryn complained as she reluctantly approached the dress that Natasha had selected for her.

"Don't push your luck. If I didn't think it'd fall off, you'd be in the strapless one."

Cathryn muttered a few insults under her breath, but went along with Natasha's choice. If this was all the retaliation she was going to get for hurting one of Natasha's best friends - regardless of the fact that he was Cathryn's friend too - then she would count her blessings. Wearing a dress she didn't like was better than having the stuffing beaten out of her for hours on end under the pretense of training.

* * *

A/N: If you want to know when the next chapter will be posted, go read the author's note at the top of the chapter. Otherwise, thanks for reading!

J


	2. Part 2

Stark may have been arrogant and more than slightly insensitive, but Cathryn - after six years of rather excellent Quidditch celebrations and one year of the Slug Club - had to admit that the man knew how to throw a party.

Nearly eighty guests descended on the tower, ranging in age from twenty-one (the age she was being presented as) all the way to ninety-five (the eldest of the ten or so World War II veterans).

Cathryn was content to hide in the shadows, slipping from one empty corner to another, but after half an hour, Natasha appeared beside her in a manner that made Cathryn question whether the redhead knew how to Apparate or had some sort of invisibility device. After that, the party became a blur of faces and eager hands.

"Such a _fan_ , your outfit is fan _tastic_."

"I can't believe I'm actually meeting you!"

"I ate at your café, you know, the new one!"

"How old _are_ you?"

"Can you _really_ turn into an animal? Can you show us?"

Finally, Natasha deposited Cathryn amongst a group of the World War II veterans, who happily escorted her (she had a man on each arm, and two more behind her) to the billiards table, where they had a grand time teaching her to play.

Cathryn was just beginning to get the gist of the game and was lining up a shot when a heavy arm slung itself over her shoulders, laying flush against her own, and a warm body pressed against her back. She began to drive her elbow back, but it was caught in a callused hand.

"Try this one."

She lost some of the startled tension as Steve positioned her for a different shot, but didn't relax completely. "Thanks," she said, more coolly than she'd intended.

Steve backed up, and she took the shot. _It's better than what I would've done_ , she admitted after two balls sank into pockets. When she looked up, most of the surrounding guests were staring between her and Steve.

She flushed, swallowed a string of swear words that would've left Ron impressed, and pasted a sharp smile on her face as she turned to Steve, who wore a part sheepish, part angry, and part _something_ expression.

"Thanks for the help, dear," Cathryn bit out, sidling next to him and slipping her arm about his waist, under his jacket so that no one else would see the vicious pinch she gave him.

He didn't even flinch, and accepted a cue from one of the veterans with a polite greeting.

"Nice dame you got. She's a real doll," the veteran said, heading off for the bar with a few of his buddies.

"What was _that_?" Cathryn hissed as conversation picked up around them, with more than a few glances in their direction.

"I told myself a few months after you went missing that I would never wait so long again." Steve's arm landed around her shoulders again. "And Natasha might've had a few…words for me."

The anger and irritation drained from her almost as swiftly as they'd come, and she gave a low chuckle. She nodded towards a man with dark skin who was setting up the balls for a new game of billiards. "Who's that?"

"Hey, Sam!"

The man looked up, set the cue ball, and strode over. "This her?"

Cathryn felt Steve nod. "Only one person to track, now." She frowned and turned towards Steve, a question on the tip of her tongue, but he continued, "Sam, this is Cathryn Black, the Avenger Griffin. Cathryn, this is Sam Wilson, the Falcon."

"Pleased to meet you." Cathryn stepped away from Steve and offered Sam her hand.

He shook it with a returned, "The pleasure's mine. Care for a game?"

Sam, Cathryn quickly learned, was a modest man with a quick wit and a good sense of humor. His jokes were tasteful, and his stories entertaining, especially those about Steve. "Though he's happier now than I've ever seen him," Sam added quietly as they watched Steve sink the six ball into a corner pocket.

"Who else are you looking for?" Cathryn asked.

Sam chalked the tip of his cue. "You should ask Steve."

"Ask me what?" Steve draped his arm over her shoulders again. A pair of blonde women walking past gave Cathryn nasty glares, but joined a laughing crowd around the man Natasha had introduced as James Rhodes.

"Later," Cathryn murmured, watching Sam as he sank the last billiard into a pocket. "Do you mind if I go somewhere quieter for a while?"

"Not at all. Hey, Sam - balcony."

Sam immediately turned to look where Steve had nodded, and, seeing nothing, frowned.

"To sit," Steve clarified.

"Oh - yeah. I'll stay down here - I could use a drink." He headed off for the bar, and Steve escorted Cathryn to a vacant chaise.

"Are you alright?" Steve asked, sitting next to her.

"Just tired." She leaned her head on his shoulder. Despite nearly two years of separation, there was no awkwardness between them. _We're good together_ , Steve's voice reminded her, a ghost of the past. _We fit_.

Hermione's voice added, _You don't have to be alone._

"Do you need anything?" Steve asked, tensing slightly as tall man stalked past, speaking heated German into his phone.

Cathryn pressed down a shiver of revulsion at the language, glad for the reassuring press of the Elder Wand against her side, and said, "Just a few minutes of rest."

For long minutes, the two of them watched the party below. Occasionally, someone would look up at them, and more than once, the people walking by would stop and have a short conversation, but for the most part, they were left alone.

Cathryn was on the verge of yawning when Steve said, "If I got a place in Brooklyn, would you move in with me?" Any drowsiness she might have felt fled. "Now that we both work for the Avengers, you'll be going wherever I go, so you won't have to worry about me not returning - "

Cathryn sat up and pulled away from Steve. She opened her mouth, but, perhaps sensing that he wasn't going to like what she was going to say, Steve cut her off.

"You don't have to answer right now. Take as much time as you need." He touched her arm gently. "Just - think about it."

With a sigh, Cathryn said. "I'll think about it." She couldn't bring herself to say 'no' to him when he was looking at her like that - and she wasn't sure she _would_ 've said 'no', in any case, which was nearly as frightening. She cast about for a distraction, and came up with a rather weak, "Do they have any food here?"

They reentered the fray together, and time began to blur. Cathryn declined a drink from Thor - no matter if the alcohol was aged for a thousand years in barrels built from the wreck of Grunhel's fleet, drinking anything alcoholic after months of near-starvation was never a good idea - and listened to a slightly confusing joke from Rhodes (who apparently had one of Stark's suits and went by the name War Machine), losing Steve somewhere along the way.

By the time the band switched to soft jazz, Cathryn and ex-SHIELD agent Maria Hill were engaged in an in-depth discussion about public policy and ethics in wartime versus in peacetime. Eventually, as guests trickled out, the rest of the Avengers joined Cathryn and Maria. Natasha came over first, carrying a red cocktail and with a soft smile on her face that grew into a smirk when she caught Cathryn's eye.

Barton drifted over not much later, fiddling compulsively with a pair of drumsticks. The Korean woman from a few days previous - Dr. Cho, Cathryn thought her name was - sat quietly, observing the rest.

Thor, Steve, and Banner arrived one after the other. Thor placed his hammer on the table before sitting. Steve took the spot next to Cathryn, and Banner sat next to Barton and just adjacent to Natasha.

Stark and Rhodes were the last to join in, having seen the last of the other guests out the door.

Someone brought out a deck of cards, and conversation flowed easily, jumping from topic to topic, until someone brought up the magic of Mjölnir.

Cathryn hadn't realized the hammer was spelled, and listened eagerly, bringing herself out of the nearly meditative state she'd fallen into.

"But it's a trick," Barton insisted, twirling a drumstick between his fingers much in the same manner that Cathryn had twirled her wand throughout her sixth year (something she'd picked up from Tonks), until she'd nearly set her own hair on fire.

"No, no, it's much more than that." Thor passed the rest of his beer to Steve and took a sip of his whiskey. Cathryn shook her head when Steve offered her his beer, and finished it off before starting to work on Thor's.

"Ah, whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power," Barton intoned mockingly, gesturing towards the hammer. "Whatever, man!" he said normally, "It's a trick."

The others laughed, but Cathryn frowned at the hammer, which briefly flared blue. She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, the hammer was back to normal.

"Please, be my guest," Thor said, an almost smug smile on his face.

"Oh, this is going to be beautiful," Rhodes muttered, laying down his cards.

Stark chuckled and added, "Clint, you've had a tough week. We won't hold it against you if you can't get it up." Another round of laughter.

"You know I've seen this before, right?" Barton warned Thor, and then grasped the handle and pulled. He put his entire body weight against Mjölnir, but it didn't budge. Barton gave a strained laugh, still trying to lift the hammer. "I still don't know how you do it!"

"You smell the silent judgment?" Stark teased.

"Please, Stark, by all means," Barton invited, giving a mocking bow.

Stark stood and unbuttoned his jacket, clearing his throat. "Mhm."

"Uh-oh." Rhodes leaned back against the sofa.

"Never one to shrink from an honest challenge," Stark said, sliding past Barton as he returned to his seat.

"Get after it," Barton said snidely.

"It's physics." Stark slid his hand through the leather loop at the end of the handle.

"It's not," Cathryn murmured at the same time as Banner echoed Stark, "Physics!"

"Right, so, if I lift it, I then rule Asgard?" Stark asked glibly.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked, looking down at her. She'd tucked herself into the corner of the sofa long ago, and her legs were starting to fall asleep.

"Yes, of course." Thor didn't seem bothered by the prospect - clearly, he didn't expect any of them to be able to move Mjölnir.

"It's definitely magic," Cathryn said to Steve as Stark began to pull at the hammer.

Steve searched her face, and then nodded. "I don't know how you know that - "

"I just do," Cathryn insisted, even though she wasn't completely sure how she knew it either. She'd never been able to see magic before.

" - but I'll take your word for it."

Stark left a short while later, and returned with one of the repulsors from his Iron Man suit, to no avail. Even with Rhodes assisting him while wearing part of the War Machine suit, the hammer didn't budge.

Banner got up on the table and took a try, and made a lot of noise in his attempt, leaving an awkward silence in his wake, which he shrugged off with a slightly apologetic, "Huh?"

When Banner sat back down, Steve took one last drink from his beer and stood, setting the bottle on the table.

"Go ahead, Steve. No pressure. Show Sabrina what you've got." Cathryn shot Stark a scathing look, but stayed silent, watching as Steve rolled up his sleeves and centered himself.

He took a breath, and then pulled. The hammer shifted almost unnoticeably, just enough that Cathryn caught Thor leaning forward from the corner of her eye, but the magic rocked it back to its original position with an blinding flare of blue, leaving Steve's neck and arms straining as he pulled.

Steve sighed and let go, brushing his hands off on his trousers. Thor relaxed and laughed, "Nothing," before taking a relieved draught of his ale. Cathryn blinked the residual brightness from her eyes as Steve rejoined her on the sofa.

Everyone looked towards Natasha, and Stark cleared his throat.

"And, Widow?" Banner asked.

"Oh, no, no." Natasha shook her head with a graceful smile. "That's not a question I need answered."

Thor shrugged. "Anyone else?" Dr. Cho shook her head, and Maria said, "I don't need to worry about a second planet. This one is troublesome enough."

"All deference to the Man Who Wouldn't Be King, but it's rigged," Stark said.

"Cathryn?" Steve asked as she rose. She caught her balance by leaning on his shoulder, and then moved around the table towards Mjölnir, squatting in front of it and squinting at the runes and knotwork engraved into the metal.

"What's it made of?" she asked, blinking rapidly as the knotwork flashed blue.

"The metal Uru," Thor said. "Forged by the greatest Dwarven blacksmiths."

"And the enchantments?"

"There are enchantments both Dwarven and Asgardian. Most by Eitri, and the last by my father."

She inspected the engravings for a few minutes, uncaring for the nine pairs of eyes watching her every move.

"Well, Merlin? You going to work your magic?" Stark was getting impatient.

"I doubt I'll have any more luck than the rest of you," Cathryn said, but stood up all the same. None of the others were 'worthy'; her history wasn't any less riddled with sacrifice and heroics than theirs. She prepared to grasp the handle, but before her fingers could get within six inches of the hammer, blue energy crackled and spat from the head, striking her hands and forcing them away.

The scent of ozone filled her nose.

"Aw, shit," Barton said, breaking the silence.

"Are you well, Lady Griffin?" Thor asked, standing and picking up the hammer one-handed, tossing it casually and frowning. It passed within inches of Cathryn, but did not react.

 _Magic is driven by intent_ , a voice that sounded very much like Hermione's whispered in the back of her mind.

"I'm - I'm fine," Cathryn said slowly. Steve was at her side, gently taking her hands to peer at them.

"She's not injured," he said, turning them to look at her palms.

"What was it?" Natasha asked, relaxed demeanor vanished in favor of collected professionalism.

"It reacted to my magic," Cathryn said, allowing Steve to steer her towards the sofa, an arm around her waist.

"It didn't do that before," Stark pointed out. "You had to have been near that thing at least - what - ten to fifteen times during the invasion, and it didn't throw a hissy fit. Not to mention you were pretty damn close to it on the jet."

"He's right," Banner said. "Mere proximity would dictate it react whenever the minimum distance is breached, and this is the first time it's done that."

"Nearly all magic is intent-based," Cathryn said, sinking onto the sofa. Her hands were tingling now, but it was a pleasant feeling, not unlike sinking her hands into a bowl of murtlap-infused water - it felt nearly rejuvenating. "In the past, when I've been near Mjölnir, I've never tried to pick it up. The intent wasn't there, and this time it was."

Most of the others nodded, but Banner merely appeared thoughtful. "What if it wasn't a function of intent? What if it was - "

A high-pitched whine shrieked though the room. Cathryn winced and clapped her hands over her ears, very glad - for perhaps first time - that the acute hearing of her animagus form did not carry over to her human body.

When the whine died away, Cathryn uncurled, glancing around the room. The others were doing much the same, although Stark was pulling out his phone, which looked more like a slab of glass than anything else.

"Wor-thy." The voice came from near the entrance to the firing range. A mostly broken robot, dripping oil and trailing wires from the stumps of torn-off or damaged limbs, wobbled towards the stairs, gaping chestplate showing the blue glow of the electronics that ran it. "No."

Beside her, Steve stood up. Cathryn followed suit, searching down the side of her dress for the Elder Wand.

"How could you be worthy?" It gestured towards them, scattering oil like a wounded warrior scattered blood. "You're all killers."

"Stark," Steve said in warning, shifting his feet.

"Jarvis," Stark said to his phone.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep," the robot continued.

Cathryn found the wand and extracted it, uncaring that she'd probably shown her underwear to anyone who was looking.

"Or I was a - - a dream." The robot seemed confused, and Cathryn edged around Steve, directing her wand towards the robot.

Stark murmured directions to his phone, but nothing happened.

"There was this terrible noise. And I was tangled in… in… strings." The robot waved his arms, taking uncertain steps back.

Cathryn relaxed slightly, but didn't lower her wand. Perhaps the robot would shut itself down - if it was one of Stark's (and she was pretty sure it was) then there would be protocols in place that would take care of the malfunctioning program.

The robot's next words had a blasting spell on the tip of her tongue. "I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked.

"Wouldn't've been my first call," the robot said lightly.

Cathryn frowned as the robot continued to speak. Robots shouldn't have emotion - although maybe this one was just very advanced. She tapped Steve, who moved his shoulder slightly to let her know he was listening. "I've got a shot," she whispered, just loudly enough for him to hear.

"Hold," he murmured as Thor asked, "Who sent you?"

"I see a suit of armor around the world." It took a moment for Cathryn to realize that although it was Stark's voice, the robot was the one speaking - or rather, playing a recording.

"Ultron," Banner blurted.

"In the flesh," the robot said, "Or not yet. Not this - this chrysalis."

"Steve?" Cathryn pressed.

"Hold."

"But I'm on mission." The robot - Ultron - looked towards them.

"What mission?" Natasha asked. She had picked up a fondue fork, and was holding it like a knife. Cathryn glanced around - Maria had a gun, and Thor had Mjölnir.

"Peace in our time."

Explosions came from either side of Ultron, and Cathryn instinctively cried out, "Protego!"

Almost immediately, debris ricocheted off her unusually blue shield, followed barely a second later by what she finally realized was another robot.

"Take it down!" Steve bellowed into her ear, flipping a coffee table into the path of another robot. It crashed through it as if it were made of paper.

Cathryn dispelled the shield with a flick of her wand, and fed the motion into wide sweeping motion. "Immobulus!" All of the robots in the room slowed down, but only the two within ten feet of her froze.

"Thanks," Steve said, and twisted the head off the nearest robot; it popped free with a fountain of sparks. He rushed off to help Stark, who was trying to take one of the slow-moving robots apart with a tool, while Thor systematically smashed his hammer through the rest.

Cathryn planted her feet and targeted the incoming surge of robots, sticking to blasting curses. Much like the Blast-Ended Skrewts from fourth year, she had to aim for parts not protected by plating, or the spells just bounced off. If she was more talented at transfiguration, she might have tried to turn the lot of them into daisies - or better yet, teapots - but she had a nagging feeling that the robots would be as impervious to her transfigurations as they'd been to her Freezing Charm.

Finally, the last of the robots was downed.

"Hey, Cap!" Barton emerged from a lower floor, flinging something through the air. Steve caught the object, slipping his shield onto his arm.

"That was dramatic," Ultron observed, kicking aside the remains of a robot that had been blasted by one of Cathryn's curses. She frowned, wondering how that one shoddy robot had managed to remain whole, and then decided it didn't matter.

"Reducto." She pushed all of her irritation into the spell.

Ultron tried to move out of the way, but the curse caught the robot in the shoulder. For a split second, the robot's glowing eye-holes turned towards her, and then, the body collapsed. By the time it hit the floor, it was a pile of metal sand. A ghostly chuckle floated upwards, lingering longer than Cathryn thought it had any right to.

Steve reached her first, pushing her arm down.

"Why did you do that?"

"Did _you_ want to listen to a villainous monologue?"

"We could have learned something," Natasha said, stepping over a stray robot arm. Behind Natasha, Thor nodded towards Steve before launching himself out the window, hammer whirring.

"Like what?" Cathryn asked, too confused to even ask where Thor was going. "The robot's dead. It's the end of it."

"He's not," Banner said, inspected the pile of sand. "Ultron is like Jarvis - a program."

"Now we don't have any idea of his plans, his whereabouts," Natasha said coolly.

A pit of guilt opened in the base of her stomach. "I didn't realize. I didn't know that it - he wasn't just a robot."

"If you'd been here - " Steve started, but Cathryn rounded on him

"That's not fair, and you know it!" She glared at him. "By the time I thought it was safe, I was on the run from - " she bit off the last part of her sentence. "I was running from more than just the remnants of Hydra, and by the time I considered finding you - any of you - my friend had already asked me for help."

"You didn't need to leave in the first place," Steve insisted.

"Bad move," Cathryn heard Barton say, garnering a dry, "He'll learn," from one of the other men.

"You could have stayed with us after the invasion," Steve finished.

"Stayed with 'us'?" Cathryn asked incredulously. "There was no _'us_ '! There was you, there was Thor, there was Stark and Banner, and there was Barton and Romanoff! And I was never _meant_ to be part of the team! I was _blackmailed_ into joining, because Fury was out of his league and he knew it! He dragged me out of my bloody well-deserved retirement because there was _magic_ involved!" She shoved her wand behind her ear, ignoring the way it shot out a few sapphire sparks, and turned away. She'd gone a grand total of three steps before spinning on her heel and adding, "If you wanted your information so badly, maybe you should've just left me in the cell and waited to trap Wanda and Pietro when they came back for me! At least _they_ don't lie!"

She marched past Barton, who was watching her with an unreadable expression. "What are you looking at?" she snarled, and started up the stairs.

"That's the wrong way," Barton called after her. "If you're trying to get to your room."

"Jarvis!" Cathryn snapped, turning to head the other direction.

There was no response.

"Jarvis," Stark commanded. He jogged up the stairs, brushing against Cathryn as he passed her. She turned to follow him up to the lab. When she glanced back, she saw all the others trailing behind her, some more slowly than the others.

Up in the lab, Stark tipped his phone towards a glass panel on the floor, and an orange holograph of something that Cathryn could not decipher appeared.

"What?" Banner asked softly, joining Stark at the glass panel.

Cathryn stood with her arms crossed until she glimpsed Steve standing in the same position a few yards away. She boosted herself onto an uncluttered lab-bench instead.

"This is insane," Banner said, frowning at the jumbled mess of orange.

"What _is_ it?" Cathryn asked.

"That used to be Jarvis," Stark said. "Ultron must have destroyed him."

"He had to." Steve leaned against the glass wall. "Jarvis was the first line of defense. If Ultron hadn't taken him out, Jarvis would have shut Ultron down."

"No." Banner finally looked up from the holographic remains of Jarvis. "Ultron could have assimilated Jarvis. He didn't destroy Jarvis for strategy. He did this in…rage."

Thor strode in, anger evident in the tense set of his shoulders. He walked straight through the hologram, which shivered, and then collapsed. "Stark," Thor growled.

"Thor!" Steve inserted himself between the god and the billionaire. "The Legionnaire?"

"The _what_?" So far, this discussion had been one confusion after the other. Cathryn's head was spinning just trying to keep up.

"One of the robots that Ultron was controlling," Barton explained, leaning against her table. "Part of a set, the Iron Legion, that Stark made to help keep citizens safe."

She snorted. "Fat lot of good that was."

"It was, actually," Barton said. "Until now."

"…headed north," Thor was saying when Cathryn tuned back in to the others' conversation. "And it has the scepter." She stiffened, and glanced towards where the scepter had been the other day. True to Thor's word, it was gone. "Now we have to retrieve it. Again."

"Genie's out of that bottle," Natasha said from the far side of the room. She had changed out of her dress in favor of clothes more suited to fighting. "Clear and present is Ultron. He's the more immediate threat."

"He has the scepter," Cathryn said, cutting Thor off before he could retort. "If we find Ultron, we find the scepter." The others nodded, although Thor didn't look any less troubled.

"I don't understand," Dr. Cho said, rifling through some of the files on Stark's computer.

"Join the club," Cathryn muttered sourly.

"You wrote this program," Dr. Cho pointed to the computer. "Why is it trying to kill us."

Banner sighed, and Stark's jaw tightened before he started to laugh.

"You think this is funny?" Thor growled, starting menacingly towards Stark before visibly restraining himself.

"No." The laughter was gone as quickly as it'd come, but a smile still lurked about the corners of his mouth. "It's probably not, right? This is very terrible. Is it so…" He chuckled again. "Is it so…It is. It's so terrible."

"This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor had never sounded so condescending, and Cathryn was taken aback at the suddenness of the reminder that Thor was not _human_. He wasn't one of them - _Am I one of them either?_ \- and his separation from them had never been so apparent. He sounded like a parent scolding a two-year-old for playing with the electrical socket.

"No." Stark moved towards Thor. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a _hoot_ that you don't get why we need this, because - "

"Tony," Banner interrupted, "maybe this might not be the time."

"Really? That's it? You just roll - "

"Will you _shut up?!_ "

The entire room stared at her. "You, Stark, you need to stop thinking you know better than everyone else, - "

"Says the witch who killed our best lead," Stark said snidely.

Cathryn ignored him. "- and Thor, yes, the human race isn't as advanced as the Asgardians, but that's no reason to not tell us why you want the scepter so badly."

Stark drew up short. "Yeah. If you know something about the scepter, why aren't you telling us?"

"Stark -"

Cathryn cut Thor off. "What were you trying to do?" she asked Stark. "Maybe I'm just out of the loop with everything, but what exactly was Ultron supposed to do?"

Stark gave a bitter chuckle. "Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?"

"No, that's never come up," Rhodes remarked snidely from beside Agent Hill.

"Saved New York?" Stark asked.

"Never heard that," Rhodes deadpanned.

"We saved New York together," Cathryn said.

"But I was the one in zero-atmosphere! A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space, and the only thing we can offer is to blow up our own city in the hopes that, what - they'll give up? Decide they don't like the planet anymore?" Stark shook his head. "We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but up there, that's…that's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that, the next time it comes?"

"Together," Steve said firmly.

"We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together too." Steve's chin was set stubbornly and his arms were crossed over his chest.

"And what good will that do the rest of humanity?" Stark asked. "How is us dying going to help anyone? Ultron was supposed to be the shield that stopped the threat before it got here. We wouldn't be the front line anymore, we'd be the backup."

"It's hard to know what it'll do if you didn't write it," Banner said. "We should've analyzed it better. Now we've built a murder-bot."

"We weren't anywhere close. We weren't even close to an interface." Stark sounded surprisingly upset, and Cathryn was seconds late in realizing he was upset that he'd failed to integrate the program.

"Well," Steve said into the silence that followed Stark's self-proclaimed failure. "You did something right, because Ultron's here, and he's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

* * *

They didn't sleep. Stark, Banner, and Natasha spun from computer to computer, keeping track of news reports as they filed in, sending links to Hill, who searched for patterns and relayed the most important information to Steve, who was marking a world map with the locations of all the news stories. Barton sifted through the mess left by the fight, pulling out anything useful and leaving the rest for a crew to dispose of. Thor paced the perimeter of the room, too unfamiliar with technology to be much use. Cathryn was in a similar position, but was instead seated on the table she'd claimed as her own some hours before, answering the questions sporadically fired her way.

"Describe the twins' powers again."

"How adept is the female at mind manipulation?"

"What does it look like when the male uses his power? The female?"

"What did Strucker do to them? What type of experiments did he run?"

Occasionally, Cathryn's answers were helpful. Most of the information she had was redundant, but Steve kept asking anyways, although he never once met her eyes.

Every so often, someone would take a break. Hill disappeared for nearly an hour in the late afternoon, rejoining them at the same time Steve came back from changing into his fighting gear, a tablet in his hand. He handed it to Thor.

"What's this?" Stark asked, typing a few more words into his computer and then joining Thor and Steve by Natasha's computer.

"A message," Steve said, meeting Cathryn's eyes for the first time since their argument. "Ultron killed Strucker."

"Good." The words passed her lips before she could even think about holding it back.

The others all glanced towards her. Thor passed the tablet roughly to Stark, who took a single look and said, "And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us."

"Why?" Cathryn asked, hopping off the table and peering at the tablet. She stomped down the rush of vindictive pleasure at seeing Strucker dead, the word 'peace' spelled in his blood in the wall above him. "Why kill Strucker, and why write the message?"

"A smokescreen," Natasha answered. "Why kill him, if he's already locked away?"

"Strucker knew something," Steve began.

"He knew something that Ultron doesn't want us to know," Cathryn finished. She glanced at Steve, and looked away when she found him staring at her.

"Yeah, I bet he…" Natasha typed a few words, and the computer made an irate noise. "Yeah. Everything we had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything," Steve said.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, they were in a room just next to the billiards table (which Steve kept glancing at), sorting through boxes of old paperwork, all of them on Strucker.

"Known associates," Steve said, dropping the last box on the table. "Strucker had a lot of friends."

"Well, these people are all horrible," Banner said, reading a file.

"Wait, I know that guy." They all clustered around Stark as Banner handed the file to him. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast. Black market arms."

"You didn't sell enough on your own?" Steve asked brusquely. Cathryn was tempted to kick his leg under the table. Steve seemed to have caught her train of thought, because he glanced at her, and then said, "Never mind."

"There are conventions, all right? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything." Thankfully, Stark dropped the subject. "He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer. It was all very Ahab."

Thor thrust a photo under Cathryn's nose to get it to Stark. "This?"

"It's a tattoo. I don't think he had it then."

"Not the tattoo," Cathryn said, taking the photo from Thor and examining it closer. "This one - " she pointed to a square-ish mark on the man's neck. " - it's a brand."

It took Banner less than five minutes to find a match. "Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief', but in a much less friendly way."

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakanada." Banner glanced back at the computer screen. "Wa - Wakanda."

Steve and Stark looked like they'd just been hit in the head with a Bludger. "If he got out of the country with some of their trade goods…" Stark trailed off leadingly.

"I thought your father said he got the last of it."

"The last of what?" Cathryn asked at the same time that Banner said, "I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?"

Cathryn followed Steve's gaze to his shield.

"The strongest metal on Earth."

* * *

It took fifteen minutes for everyone to put on their suits and find their way to the quinjet. As she took a seat, Cathryn found herself very much regretting leaving her trunk in Sokovia. No one had anticipated her needing an outfit to fight in, and so she had been given a SHIELD standard-issue catsuit from the supplies that the Avengers had inherited with the acquisition of ex-Agent Hill.

Although the SHIELD uniform wasn't very different than her own dragonscale armor in design, the fabric didn't move with her the same way the dragonscale did, nor was the uniform tailored to her exact measurements.

Once in the jet, Cathryn had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching her, but whenever she glanced around, none of the others were looking in her direction. She ended up taking advantage of the three hour flight and slept for most of the journey, only waking up when someone shook her shoulder.

Cathryn looked up in time to see Steve joining the rest of the Avengers in the middle of the jet. She ran a hand through her hair, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and settled herself between Barton and Thor.

"Alright, here's the plan," Steve began. "We're twenty minutes out. Natasha, you'll land the jet someplace out of the probable red zone. Myself, Tash, Clint, Tony, and Thor will go in. Tony, you'll do the talking. The hope is to get in, get the vibranium, and get out. Everyone good with that?"

"What about me?" Cathryn asked sharply, and then added, "And Banner."

"Bruce will join us if it's a Code Green," Steve said. "Until then, the both of you stay here."

"If you weren't going to use me, why even bring me?" Cathryn asked

"You're part of the team - "

"We're going to need her," Stark interrupted Steve, looking up from his tablet. "The cameras I jacked just caught a blur. The Maximoffs are there."

"And if the Maximoffs are there, Ultron won't be far behind." Steve sighed. "Fine. New plan." He paused, frowning. "Stark, you'll still do the talking, but you'll have to be the one to fight Ultron. You're the most likely to match him, and you can fly."

"I can fly," Cathryn and Thor said at the same time.

"Cath - Griffin," Steve amended, "You need to keep Wanda busy. We don't need her messing around with our heads."

"Had enough of that for a lifetime," Barton murmured, checking his quiver. "And the rest of us?" he asked, louder.

"We don't know enough about what'll be waiting for us to say for sure. Help anyone who needs it, and watch your back."

In the last few minutes, Banner handed out communication devices.

"I don't think it'll do very well," Cathryn said doubtfully, tucking it into her ear. Stark frowned, his helmet clicking into place for a few second before rising again.

"I'll work on a special comm later," he told her.

She shrugged. "Good luck." If Stark managed to overcome the difficulty that electronic devices had in areas of high magical-residue - such as in the ear of a witch or wizard - he really was the genius he was lauded to be.

* * *

The sand in the salvage yard was wet, sucking at her shoes with every step as they jogged towards the ship that Tony said his contact was on, the _Churchill_.

Getting on board the ship was easy. Thor grabbed Steve, Tony flew up with Barton and then returned for Natasha, while Cathryn transformed and flew herself up. She wasn't strong enough to carry anyone else, not even Natasha, and wolves weren't exactly easy to ride, even one the size of a Great Dane. With practice, Cathryn suspected she might be able to eventually give Natasha short lifts, but not straight upwards like this. When she transformed back, the earpiece buzzed with static; she took it out and Vanished it, ignoring the sidelong glances from the others.

The upper deck was abandoned, as were the next two, but the lower they went, the more noise they heard.

Stark doubtlessly had some sort of device that told him where to go, and he lead them unerringly though a warren of narrow corridors and wide-open shipping bays.

And then they didn't need Stark's technology anymore, because they could all hear Ultron's distinctive cadence echoing off the metal.

"...like Iron Man? I mean, look at me! Stark is nothing!" There was a momentary loss as they sped up and Ultron's voice dropped in pitch, and then, "Don't compare me with Stark! It's a thing, with me. Stark is…he's a sickness!"

They found the area; Cathryn nearly followed Barton and Natasha up to the second level, but Steve's hand shot out and grabbed her elbow, steering her towards where Ultron towered above Wanda and Pietro.

"Ah, Junior." Stark landed in front of them with a clang. "You're gonna break your old man's heart."

Pietro froze momentarily, and then carelessly tossed a clear cylinder aside, settling into the stance that Cathryn recognized as the one he used for extra rapid acceleration. Wanda fell back slightly, hands raised. Cathryn knew the other witch was beginning to summon her powers.

"If I have to," Ultron said, squaring off. He didn't sound particularly upset over the prospect.

"No one has to break anything," Thor said.

"Clearly you've never made an omelet."

Cathryn was momentarily confused by the odd expression - American, no doubt - but shoved the feeling aside.

"He beat me by one second," Stark muttered, but his voice came clearly out of his suit's speaker.

"Ah, yes, he is funny." Pietro stepped forward. "Mr. Stark. It's what? Comfortable? Like old times?" He glanced down towards the missiles stacked in the bed below them.

Cathryn pushed past Steve as Stark said, "This was never my life."

"Pietro," she said softly.

"Cathryn." Pietro's face relaxed, but only for a moment. "I am glad you are well. You should leave." Wanda joined her brother, not as happy to see Cathryn.

"You are vith them now," she said stiffly, nodding towards the Avengers.

"I might stand with them, but I came to find you," Cathryn returned easily.

Pietro's eyes narrowed, a split second before Steve's hand landed on Cathryn's shoulder.

"I know you've suffered," Steve said, and Cathryn was tempted to elbow the idiot for stopping her before she could really get started - looking at the twins now, she knew she had no chance; their faces were closed off and unforgiving. They would've listened to her, she was sure of it, if only Steve had kept quiet. "But you are making a mistake. We can help you."

Ultron scoffed, and then chuckled. "Captain America. God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. Not so godly as you'd have some believe, carrying on with that one." Ultron frowned. "I don't have much information on that one. Cathryn Black, formerly Potter. The Avenger Griffin." He hummed thoughtfully. "A number of experiments run on her, but none conclusively, although there is - " Ultron cocked his head. "Curious. You know," he said, addressing Steve once more, "at first I thought you to be merely opportunistic, but if you've chosen her then maybe you're not as insipid as I believed. Still," Ultron added, glancing between them, "the thought of the two of you is - " he shuddered dramatically. "I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but- "

Steve's hand clenched around her shoulder, and Cathryn hissed as his grip became painful. He let go immediately, but then drew her behind him by her elbow.

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it," Thor tried, his tone conciliatory, almost diplomatic. Cathryn remembered that he was a prince, and had almost certainly had lessons in diplomacy and politics as a child.

"I think you're confusing 'peace' with 'quiet'," Ultron corrected. "I know you weren't here for the fall of SHIELD, but ask one of your compatriots. One of them should be able to explain the difference."

"Yeah-huh. We'll have story time when we've finished kicking your ass," Stark blustered. "What's the vibranium for?"

Cathryn swore that Ultron rolled his eyes. "I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan."

Ultron's fist flashed blue, and then she was flying through the air. Cathryn was plucked mid-flight by another robot - _an extension of Ultron_ , she reminded herself - as the robot began to lift off, only to be beheaded by Mjölnir.

"Thanks," she said as Thor unbent the robot's arms.

Thor didn't reply, already summoning his hammer back.

Cathryn drew her wand in time to turn aside a blast of Wanda's red energy about to collide with Steve's shield.

"I've got this," she said as she stepped past him.

"Be - " he slammed the edge of his shield towards the neck of the robot just in front of him, but it blocked the shield with its arm, losing the limb but saving its neck, "- careful."

Cathryn answered with a vague, "And you," already busy eyeing the energy swirling about Wanda's hands.

Gunfire sprayed from further down the ship. She ignored it. "Wanda - " she began, but was cut off.

"I alvays knew you vould side vith them," Wanda spat, accent thicker than normal. "You come, and give us hope, and then break my brother's heart."

"I - what?" Cathryn shook her head, and then erected a quick shield to block a smattering of bullets. "You still have hope," she said when an arrow whistled overhead, ending in an explosion in the area where the bullets had come from. "Viktor and Yvette, they're still waiting to meet you. I'm going there soon, to get my things. I can bring the two of you with me."

"Don't _lie_." Wanda threw two streams of energy at Cathryn, who blocked them with ease.

"You'll have to do better than that," Cathryn said with a smile that she knew would infuriate Wanda.

It worked. Cathryn spent the next several minutes dodging and blocking Wanda's attempts. As her rage increased, the red energy became more fluid, until Wanda was performing better than Cathryn had ever seen.

"Amazing!" Cathryn laughed, retaliating for the first time. The Elder Wand was an extension of her arm, flinging out an array of non-lethal spells, everything from the immobilization hex to a tickling charm. It spoke to Wanda's nimbleness that she managed to evade Cathryn's spells for nearly thirty seconds before she was clipped by a mild sleeping charm.

Cathryn hurried to the younger witch's side. "If I'd taught you to block energy, you might have beaten me, but I'd have to be - "

She was thrown through the air for a second time, only this time no one snatched her to safety, and she collided painfully with metal. Her back throbbed in time with two aching patches on her chest where, presumably, she'd been hit.

"What did you do to her?" Pietro demanded, crouched over his sister, pale hair falling across his narrowed eyes.

"She's asleep," Cathryn gasped out, using the railing to haul herself to her feet. It hurt. "She'll wake up in an hour, or sooner, if I reverse it."

"Do it." Pietro was at her side in a blink, and the next second Cathryn was next to Wanda once more, hair askew. "Wake her up."

"No. She'll fight me again."

"Do it!"

Cathryn hesitated.

"I will make sure she does not use her power on you, or the others in here," Pietro pleaded.

A loud _clang_ came from further down the ship, and a yell that sounded like Barton.

"Fine." With a mental, _Finite_ , she canceled the charm. Wanda began to move, and Pietro gathered her up.

"Thank you." He vanished, leaving only a faint trail of red from where Wanda's hand had dangled.

Cathryn headed towards the yell, but found Steve already there, helping Barton to his feet.

"Pushed me off," the archer said, nodding towards a headless robot.

"The girl?" Steve asked, looking Cathryn up and down for damage.

"Gone. Pietro came and snatched her away. He's fast," she added to Steve's frown.

"He is," Steve agreed.

They heard one last whimper from somewhere above them, and then Thor called out, "Is that all?"

"Yeah," Barton said, "What about - "

The screech of metal tearing echoed across the hold. Cathryn looked up, meeting Steve's eyes. "The vibranium," all four of them said.

Even with Thor's superb speed, the vibranium was gone long before they reached the place where it had been, lifted out of the hold through a massive hole in the ceiling.

"Damn," Steve swore.

"Language," Barton chided.

"Are you ever going to forget about that?" Steve grumbled.

"Take a guess." Natasha smirked, swinging down from the level above. "It's too good not to - "

"Natasha, I could really use a lullaby," Stark's voice came through the others' communicators, loud enough that Cathryn could hear his voice.

All levity fell away, and Steve immediately responded. "What's the situation?"

"What's a lullaby?" Cathryn asked Barton in an undertone.

"Means that the Hulk is out, and not being very nice."

"Oh."

Thor picked Natasha up and flew her straight out of the hole that Ultron had made. "Should I …?" Cathryn trailed off, nodding towards the hole.

Barton didn't reply beyond a quick shrug, but Steve frowned. "You might be able to help," he finally said. "But watch yourself. You haven't been around the Hulk like this, and he hasn't been around you."

"I'll be fine," Cathryn said, shimmying her wand up her sleeve; it was a struggle to get it in, and she wished more than ever for her dragon-hide suit. She stepped towards the ledge, and then paused. "Will you be coming towards us, or do we just come back here?"

"Follow Stark's lead," Steve said. "There's no definite way of knowing."

Instead of transforming immediately, Cathryn wiggled her wand free and cast a disillusionment spell over herself, the magic trickling over her like a cold slime poured over her head.

"Nifty," Barton commented, reaching out and patting her shoulder. "I can barely see where you are."

"It's not my best spell," Cathryn admitted, reinserting her wand up her sleeve. "I like my invisibility cloak better for going unnoticed."

She transformed and leapt clear, the wind from her wings causing Steve and Barton to adjust their stances. Her keen ears picked up Barton's incredulous, "Invisibility cloak?" as she rocketed towards the sky, following the scent of electricity and rain to wherever Thor had gone.

* * *

By the time Cathryn was able to track the screams and sirens to the close outskirts of the city, Thor had set Natasha down, and the god and Stark were busy keeping the crowds at bay and silent.

Cathryn landed on an unoccupied balcony and transformed, squinting through a fuliginous haze as Natasha stood alert but unflinching in front of the heavily panting Hulk. Her breath caught in her throat as Natasha held her hand out towards the Hulk, who, slowly, began to shift to a less threatening stance, before his head snapped towards the crowd and he roared.

Natasha jumped back into the Hulk's line of sight, and Cathryn could hear Stark projecting his voice through his suit. "Everybody, stay calm! Don't move, and be quiet, please!" Cathryn was surprised he'd asked nicely (sort of).

Twice more, Natasha tried to keep the Hulk's attention, but each time he was close to reciprocating the spy's gesture, some noise or motion from the crowd would distract him and raise his ire.

Cathryn spotted motion in the crowd - men in tactical outfits, each of them carrying a large gun - and made her decision. It was a matter of seconds for her to draw her wand, and several more seconds to recall the proper motions, but within twenty seconds, purple-blue light streamed from her wand towards the street where Natasha and the Hulk were situated. Her magic settled easily into a complete sphere around the four Avengers. As soon as the sphere was complete, Cathryn murmured, "Caligius." The magic still streaming from her wand became opaque, feeding into the sphere until the structure itself was no longer transparent. Only then did Cathryn sever the connection, legs wobbly; it was a difficult spell, one of the last ones that Professor Flitwick had taught her before she'd fled England. Not many witches or wizards were powerful enough to cast it - she doubted more than ten in England could, herself included amongst them.

Slowly, Cathryn became aware of the crowd's attention. A few of them were taking the time to leave the area - _the smart ones_ , Cathryn noted with dry amusement - but most of the people below were either staring at the massive sphere that looked to be embedded in the street (and part of the sidewalk) or had their faces turned towards her balcony. Cathryn was very glad that she'd neglected to cancel her Disillusionment Charm. She had no doubt that at least a quarter of the people on the street and in the buildings nearby had been filming the last few minutes on their phones, and at least this way there was no discernable source of the sphere aside from a vague 'that balcony over there'. The Ministry and the ICW couldn't get mad at her for flaunting the Code if the muggles didn't know who was responsible for the miraculous event.

Nearly four minutes passed while Cathryn watched the increasingly agitated crowd. A few more people dispersed, a large majority of them garnered the courage to touch the sphere - it was easy after the first person discovered that there were no deadly surprises, just a mild static feeling - but Cathryn was getting antsy. It would only be a few more minutes before one of them was clever enough to think of going up to her balcony themselves, and she didn't want to have to try to transform mid-air just to cancel the spell.

Thankfully, less than a minute passed before Mjölnir erupted from the sphere. Cathryn raised her wand to perform the counter-charm, but it wasn't necessary. Even as Mjölnir fell back towards the ground, the sphere was disintegrating, sublimating from solid to gas before dissipating into the air.

The crowd backed away as the edge of the sphere descended, and then the noise grew when the four Avengers were revealed. Cathryn could only imagine the sort of things they were saying - she was glad she was away from the immediacy of the crowd's reaction to the day's violence.

Stark's hands were held out in a placating fashion, and Cathryn only caught snatches of words. She tucked her wand back up her sleeve and transformed, flaring her wings slightly to loosen them, and then leapt from the balcony, wings easily propelling her upwards.

Too late, she realized that her Disillusionment Charm hadn't lasted through another transformation - even though it should have. Already, people were pointing at her, and her newly keen ears caught Stark's words as he said, "Yes, that's Griffin, she was responsible for the energy shield!"

Cathryn faltered when the sound of applause drifted up to her, and she quickly disguised the mistake as a glide. Her chest felt oddly warm, though she couldn't help but think, _People are idiots. Half of them nearly died, and here they are, cheering_.

She turned and headed out of the city, back towards the salvage yard. Even an unreasonably moody Steve was preferable to this.

* * *

Cathryn ended up not needing to worry about dealing with Steve on her own. First Thor (carrying a stony-faced Bruce) and then Stark (with an equally stony-faced Natasha clinging to his back) caught up to her, so all five of them arrived at the quinjet together.

Barton had them in the air so quickly that Cathryn barely had time to get on board before the ramp hissed shut. She collapsed gratefully onto one of the long padded benches; even with her eyes closed and chest aching from Pietro's hits, she couldn't get the expression of sheer misery on Bruce's face out of her mind. She concentrated instead on listening forward as Stark gave a quick recap of what had happened in the city to Steve and Barton. Although Tony had only fought the Hulk for a few minutes - two at most - the pair of them had dealt a lot of damage.

A blanket was draped over her, and she lost track of the conversation in the cockpit.

"Is she well?" Thor rumbled from some distance away.

Natasha's voice was much closer. "Tired, I would expect. It's only been a few days."

After a pause, Thor said, "She is strong."

Natasha made no audible response; she was most likely able to tell that Cathryn wasn't sleeping.

A minute later, a quiet, "Here," and the rustling of fabric told Cathryn that someone else had been given a blanket by Natasha. The lack of response made her think it was Bruce, who'd had his head between his knees when Cathryn had glimpsed him before take-off.

She couldn't imagine how he felt. The worst she'd ever done was demolish a bank - not counting the time she'd lead her friends into a battle that not all of them had walked out of. Bruce had destroyed at least a block of a city, and had injured more than a score of people in doing so. No one had died - she was sure of it.

 _No_ , she thought to herself, pulling the blanket tighter about her shoulders, _I doubt even Remus could imagine how Bruce is feeling_.

Despite having kept her eyes closed for the last hour, Cathryn hadn't been able to even doze, let alone sleep. Shortly after take-off, Thor had stopped pacing, and was now brooding in an isolated chair, so intent on his thoughts that if she were anything more than a poor Legilimens, she was certain he would've been broadcasting. Natasha had settled into a chair next to where Bruce sat on the floor, and Steve was somewhere to Cathryn's left - she wasn't sure where, exactly, since she had yet to move, but his footsteps had faltered as he'd past her on his way there.

Cathryn was content to lay in silence until Stark made a call to Hill.

"The news is loving you guys," Hill said. Cathryn drew her legs under her and knelt on the bench, blanket draped over her shoulders. "But everyone else is…undecided. There's been no call for Banner's arrest, but it's in the air. There's a faction calling for Black to disclose the full range of her abilities after the light-show she put on, and there's a faction that's defending her right to privacy, but even they want to see her. It seems that the general lack of information on Griffin has given her an air of mystery not unlike the one that Thor has gained, although he at least has more of a public history than Cathryn does."

There was a moment of silence, broken by Stark's asking, "And the Stark Relief Foundation?"

"Already on the scene," Hill replied. "There's not much to be done. Mostly damages and injuries."

"Deaths?" Banner's question was too casual.

"None reported as of yet," Hill replied.

"You didn't kill anyone," Cathryn said firmly.

"You can't know that," Banner bit out.

"I _know_ ," Cathryn repeated, "Just like I _know_ that during the invasion, one hundred fourteen people died during the attack."

In the awkward silence following her declaration, Thor said, "I will take Lady Black at her word, even before consulting Heimdall."

Hill changed the subject. "How's the team?"

Stark answered for them all. "We'll pull through. I don't think any of us were expecting the Maximoff's to be so effective." Cathryn had to agree with Stark's assessment; she'd known, of course, that Wanda was _able_ to mess with people's minds, make them see their worse nightmares. She'd just never expected her to actually do something like set the Hulk on innocent people - and she hadn't expected Pietro to let Wanda do it, after the promise he'd given Cathryn.

"Well," Hill said, "for now, I'd keep a low profile. It's safer if you stay away from here until things calm down. Even some of the locals are uneasy right now."

The mood in the jet, already disheartened, became even glummer. "So, run and hide," Stark summarized.

"Until we find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer," Hill said.

"What if I came alone and - presented a story to the public?" Cathryn asked, standing and moving towards the small screen that showed Hill's face. "Would that help?"

"That's not an option," Steve shot the idea down.

Irritation surged in her chest. "I'm capable of holding a press conference, thanks," she snapped.

"The Cap's right," Stark said, smoothing his goatee. "Ultron was too interested in you."

"I destroyed one of his baser forms which was in the midst of abducting her," Thor said.

"What?" Steve asked sharply, standing as well.

"Look," Cathryn cut him off. "Ultron was probably trying to get me out of the way because he knows I'm the only one capable of keeping Wanda out of play."

In the cockpit, Barton muttered, "I'm not so sure about that."

"Without _hurting_ her," Cathryn amended.

"It wasn't that," Stark shook his head. "What Ultron said about you - he taunted the rest of us, but he seemed almost wary of you. No," he shook his head again, more decisively, "we should stick together." He turned back to Hill's image. "Let us know if you hear anything."

"I will," Hill promised. Stark shut off the screen and stared listlessly at it for a few seconds. Cathryn skulked over to the seat next to Natasha and folded herself onto it.

A minute later, Stark joined the rest of them in the main area. "Clint's taking us to a safe house. We're a few hours out, so if you need a nap, now's a good time," he announced before taking over the bench that Cathryn had recently vacated. Shortly after Stark's declaration, Steve took the seat on Cathryn's other side.

Cathryn closed her eyes, but sleep was as elusive as it'd been before Hill's report.

* * *

Two hours later, the only person that Cathryn knew for sure was asleep was Stark, whose quiet but consistent snores offset the sound of the jet's engines. Thor had yet to even sit, although his pacing had slowed considerably in the past few minutes; Cathryn wasn't sure if she wanted to know what was bothering him. Natasha was too still for Cathryn to believe her charade, but she had to admit to the possibility that the spy had been trained to sleep that way, and if Banner was asleep after the day he'd had, she'd eat her broomstick as soon as she got it back.

"I'm sorry." Steve's voice was hardly more than a whisper, but it was unexpected enough to make her flinch, though Thor's steps didn't falter.

"What?" She moved her arm off her knees so that she could see him. He was watching her intently.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. Cathryn was about to say that she'd heard him the first time, but he continued to speak. "I was out of line after Stark's party, and I shouldn't have tried to bench you earlier. I apologize."

Cathryn's vindictive streak flared briefly before her reason took over - this was _Steve_ , who'd brought her flowers almost every evening, laughed with her over the smallest of things, who'd made her happier than she'd been for years (Steve-who-she-loved, no matter how she tried to deny it). So even though some small part of her wanted nothing more than to show him exactly how mean she could be, Cathryn said, "I forgive you." He smiled, relief clear. "That doesn't mean I'm not still angry," she warned.

"I know." He glanced towards the cockpit, where the shape of Barton's head and shoulders could only just be made out against the lightening sky. "I was advised," he began uncertainly, "that I owe you an explanation."

"You don't - " Cathryn began, but he shook his head.

"The last time I went into battle with someone I love," he whispered hotly, "he died. Or at least, I thought he did - but that's not the point. The point is, I didn't want to risk you dying."

She choked down a bitter laugh. The last thing Steve would ever need to worry about was her death. "I can take care of myself," she said. "If you recall, I came out of Manhattan unhurt by the Chitauri." Sore, yes, but not injured.

"That's different," Steve said. "The Chitauri were - " he winced " - _easy_. I've gone against things that make them look like a warm-up." He stared down at his clasped hands.

Cathryn stretched out a leg, touching his calf lightly with her foot. "Trust me," she said quietly. "I'm more than capable of keeping myself alive." He looked like he wanted to protest, so she added, "but if it'll make you feel better, I'll spar with you until you can see for yourself." Doubt crossed his features, and then he tried to hide the expression, but Cathryn didn't mind. "Really," she assured him, retracting her leg back into her warm blanket cocoon. "You'll see."

* * *

A/N: this is the shortest of the three chapters. Last one tomorrow!


	3. Part 3

When they touched down at Barton's safe house, the sun was already above the horizon.

Cathryn walked between Thor and Steve as the team filed along a narrow goat-track through a wide green field towards a pale farm-house. She breathed deeply, enjoying the country air, which was warm and damp. By the time the path widened into a proper trail, dew had soaked through the fabric covering her lower legs. Everything about this place reminded her painfully of the Burrow, so much so that if she closed her eyes, she could imagine that she was headed towards the whimsical house, where a beaming Molly would be waiting with tea and scones in the kitchen. There was even the sound of chickens from somewhere around back, and when she glanced back towards the jet, she was momentarily blinded by the glare of the sun off a small pond very similar to the one that she, the Weasley's, and Hermione had swum in during the summer before fourth year.

She wasn't the only one looking around. In front of her, Thor's head turned from left to right with startling rapidity; ahead of Thor, the little of Stark's face that she could see appeared to be stuck in a state of mild confusion. At the head of the line, Natasha and Barton walked side by side, blatantly comfortable in their surroundings.

"What is this place?" Thor finally asked as Cathryn started up the front porch.

"A safe house," Stark answered, earning himself a dirty look from Thor.

"Let's hope," Barton called over his shoulder, opening the door. Cathryn inspected the shoe box just outside the door.

"This is someone's home," she said, pointing to the multiple pairs of children's shoes that had been deposited haphazardly, as if their owners had been careless in a hurry to get inside for a meal. Banner made an uncomfortable noise behind her, but Barton and Natasha were already inside; Steve's hand between her shoulder blades ushered her past the shoe box.

"Honey?" Barton called from the room to Cathryn's right. "I'm home." A heavily pregnant woman came in from an adjacent room, eyes widening as they landed on Natasha and Barton, and then continued on past them, landing lastly on Cathryn. "Hi. Company. Sorry, didn't call ahead," Barton apologized to the woman who was apparently his wife, moving forward to hug her.

"Hey." She greeted him with a brief kiss.

Stark immediately said, "This is an agent of some kind," to Thor, who was watching the events uncertainly. On Cathryn's other side, Steve looked dumbstruck at the turn of events, while Natasha watched with an almost bored expression. Banner just stared at his feet.

"Gentlemen, Cathryn, this is Laura."

"I know all of your names," his wife said with a chuckle. "Except," she glanced at Barton, "Griffin?"

"Is Cathryn," Barton confirmed, gesturing to Cathryn, who offered Laura a hesitant wave. Cathryn could nearly see the woman coming to the same conclusion that the others had already arrived at: she was too young.

The sound of feet clattering down stairs echoed into the room, and a smile crept over Barton's face. "Incoming," he warned. Moments later, a young girl dashed into the room, followed by a taller boy.

"Dad!" the girl exclaimed as Barton swept her into his arms.

"Hi, sweetheart!" The boy hugged Barton from the side. "Hey, buddy! How are you guys doing?"

With the exception of Natasha, the other Avengers watched Barton greet his children with varying expressions of shock and disbelief. Stark turned to Thor, although he kept his eyes on the children. "These are smaller agents," he said.

"Did you bring Auntie Nat?" the girl asked shyly.

"Why don't you hug her and find out?" Natasha emerged from behind Steve, who folded his hands carefully behind his back and took a step back. The girl darted towards her, and was caught up in another hug.

"Sorry for barging in on you," Steve said when the family had finished greeting Barton and Natasha.

"Yeah," Stark added. "We would have called ahead, but we were busy have no idea that you existed."

"Yeah, well, Fury helped me set this up when I joined," Barton explained. Cathryn jerked her gaze away from Natasha, who was whispering something to the girl with an indulgent smile on her face. "He kept it out of SHIELD's files. I'd like to keep it that way."

Cathryn nodded immediately, and the others gave their assent as well.

"I figure it's a good place to lay low," Barton said.

"Honey," Laura said, and Barton nodded, heading towards the room she'd entered from, his son tagging after him. The girl stared at the rest of them, eyes wide. Cathryn waved at the girl, who was only a few years older than Ekaterina.

"I'm Cathryn," she introduced herself. "What's your name?"

"I'm Lila," the girl said, and then added, "Your pants are wet."

"I know," Cathryn said, glancing down at her legs. "It's just dew from the grass outside. Did you know," she added in a conspiratorial whisper that drew Lila closer, "that there's a special type of dew that's used in magic potions?"

Lila's eyes went impossibly wide. "Really?" she breathed.

Cathryn nodded. "I'm a witch," she said. "Potion-brewing is part of the training."

"Wow!" Lila turned towards Thor, who was at least three times her height and busy shoving a toy that he'd stepped on under a nearby chair. "Are you a witch too?"

"No," Cathryn chuckled, moving towards Thor as well. "This is Lord Thor of Asgard, God of Thunder and - "

Blue lightning arced from Mjölnir, lashing out towards Cathryn, who caught the bolt in the middle of her chest. It knocked her backwards; a pair of warm arms caught her before she could hit the floor.

Dazed, Cathryn struggled to stand upright. Steve helped her, although he kept an arm around her waist. "What - ?" Cathryn asked, but she lost her words when she caught sight of Thor, whose eyes had gone completely white while Banner and Stark held him in place, though he didn't seem in danger of falling. Natasha and Barton had extracted Lila, who was gaping at Cathryn from between her parents, completely unharmed.

It was a full minute before Thor's eyes cleared, during which time the toaster pinged, momentarily claiming everyone's attention. Finally, Thor shook his head, expression grim, and then shrugged out of the grips of Stark and Banner, striding for the exit. Steve went after him.

"Sorry," Cathryn apologized to the room at large.

Barton's frown didn't ease, but he said, "Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault."

"Was that a witch power?" Lila asked.

Barton answered. "No, sweetheart. We're not sure what that was."

"Oh."

Steve reappeared in the doorway. "Thor had a vision," he explained curtly. "He's gone to find some answers." When no one commented, Steve turned and vanished back out the door, his footsteps sounding briefly on the wooden porch.

Cathryn found herself being watched expectantly by nearly every adult in the room (Banner was still fascinated by his feet, and Laura looked slightly upset by something). "I'll just…" she trailed off, and followed Steve's path out the door. As she left, she heard Stark say, "I claim first shower!"

She didn't have to look very far to find Steve. He was leaning against the split-rail fence, gazing out at the pond that Cathryn had noticed earlier.

She joined him, leaning on the fence close enough that she could feel his presence, but not close enough that her shoulders were in danger of touching his arm.

They stood in silence for long minutes, listening to the wind in the grass, the occasional snatch of conversation from the house behind them, and birds roosting in the trees.

"It's their home," Steve said at last.

Cathryn thought she knew where this was going, and nodded. "I could tell," she agreed. "As soon as we walked in the door. They both just - relaxed."

This time, only several seconds passed before Steve spoke again. "The closest I ever came to a home since waking up was your café. Something about it…" He picked up his sentence after a few moments of thought. "The atmosphere reminded me of how things were like before, in my youth. It's what brought me back, at first." He shot her a rather weak smile. "The food wasn't bad, either."

She smiled in return. "Glad to know someone liked it." Her smile faded as she said, "The first place I ever felt at home was at school."

Steve absorbed the new information with a wrinkled brow. In all the time they'd spent together, neither of them had mentioned much about their childhoods - sometimes they'd share an amusing anecdote, but Cathryn had been quick to notice that, like her, Steve was vague in his descriptions. "What about your family?" he asked. "Your aunt and uncle?"

"I grew up in their house, but it wasn't my home," Cathryn clarified. It was more true than saying that they'd hated her and she'd hated them, because despite the bitterness between herself and the Dursley's, when they'd said goodbye she'd received a (stiff) hug from her aunt and a warm handshake from her cousin. "No, my first home was Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts?" His lips twitched in amusement despite his earlier gloom.

"A school for people like me."

"Are there many…people like you?" Steve asked slowly.

"There's enough of us," Cathryn allowed. She was stretching the Code to its limit. The conversation wouldn't make sense to anyone who didn't already know she was a witch. "None like me," she added when he began to look worried. "Even amongst them, I'm…different." She sighed. "But even though I didn't always belong, Hogwarts was always so welcoming. It had a sort of - warmth, I guess, like this place does." She frowned. "Just - not as peaceful. There was always something happening in Hogwarts."

"Why'd you leave?"

She shrugged. "I couldn't stay." They watched as a doe and a fawn trotted from the edge of the trees, quickly crossing the field for the trees on the other side. "Earlier," Cathryn said, "you said something about a friend who you thought had died."

"His name is Bucky," Steve affirmed. "He was one of the Howling Commandos - the special forces unit I lead during the war." Cathryn nodded, and settled herself more comfortably against the fence. It sounded like it was going to be a long story.

* * *

Half an hour later, Steve had finished explaining the events that had lead to the collapse of SHIELD.

"So now you're trying to find him?" Cathryn asked.

"Sam's been following leads on both of you, but now he'll be able to concentrate on Bucky."

"When did you - ?" Cathryn began, but the sound of footsteps coming down stairs caught her attention.

Natasha strolled over, looking very much at ease in a pair of jeans and a blouse. "The two of you are up for your showers," she said. "Though the water went cold halfway through mine, so it might be more expedient to just share."

Cathryn's face heated, and she knew she was turning red. Steve scowled at Natasha. "I'll take the second shower," he told them.

"Suit yourself. I'll show Black the way," Natasha said, and snagged Cathryn's arm to lead her towards the house.

Cathryn was in the sitting room, watching Natasha and Lila play some sort of board game, when Steve appeared, hair still damp, tugging at the sleeves of a plaid shirt that was a little too small across the shoulders.

"The water was warm," he said pointedly to Natasha

"I fixed it," Cathryn explained.

"Is that what took you so long?" Natasha asked.

"Enchanting things isn't exactly _easy_ ," Cathryn responded somewhat peevishly.

Natasha hummed, and told Steve, "Stark's going to catch up. He took a few from your pile, too."

"He what?!" Steve grumbled as he left the room. Within the minute, the sounds of wood being split doubled as a second axe joined the first.

"Daddy won't have to chop wood all winter," Natasha told Lila, sending Cathryn a sly glance.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Lila trotted outside to join her brother and father on the porch, leaving Natasha to pack the game away with the ease of someone with a lot of practice.

"How long will it last?" Natasha asked. "Whatever you did to the shower?"

Cathryn set down the garden almanac she'd been flipping through - there were a surprisingly large amount of plants that were valued in both the magic and muggle gardens - and glanced out the window. Steve's pile of split logs was now considerably larger than Stark's. "Until the pipe holding the showerhead is replaced," she replied.

Natasha crossed to a tall cabinet and slid the box inside. "How does it work?"

Cathryn shrugged. "Magic's got rules, just like everything else. Nothing that can be easily explained, though."

The spy frowned, but nodded. "You should tell Laura."

"Tell me what, Nat?" Barton's wife stood in the doorway, a glass of lemonade in each hand.

"Cathryn?" Natasha prompted.

She stood. "I did some work on your guest shower. The water won't ever go cold - unless you turn the dial for cold water," she added hurriedly.

Mrs. Barton's eyebrows furrowed. "You fixed the water heater?"

"No, just the one shower." Cathryn crossed her arms over her chest. "I can put it back," she offered, "if you'd rather."

"No, no, it's fine," Mrs. Barton assured her. "I'll just let Clint know - he might want to pick your brain on what you did. I'm getting the boys out there some refreshment." She took a step towards the front door, and then paused. "Could I get you to do the kitchen sink, if it's not too much of a bother?"

Cathryn grinned in relief, both for having not upset Mrs. Barton and for the prospect of doing something constructive. Even watching Steve split logs was getting boring.

Within a minute of entering the kitchen, Cathryn had an audience. Natasha and all four of the Bartons watched as Cathryn inspected the sink.

"Which way for hot?" Cathryn asked.

"Left."

After the shower, the sink was an easy task. Ten minutes and four runesets later, Cathryn was finished.

"It was just a bunch of drawing," Lila complained.

"Magic isn't a toy," Barton told his daughter. "It is useful, but can be very dangerous." He tugged her braid lightly. "Go play outside. It'll be dark soon."

Natasha followed Barton's kids outside.

"Thanks," Barton said, testing the water.

"I won't have to run the water for five minutes to wait for it to heat up," Mrs. Barton added with a grateful smile.

"Is there anything else I can do?"

Mrs. Barton shook her head. "You're a guest."

Cathryn accepted the dismissal. "How far does the forest go?"

"Far enough," Barton warned.

Mrs. Barton handed Cathryn a large bottle of water.

"Don't get lost," Barton sighed, leaning against the counter.

"I'll be able to find my way back," Cathryn promised.

* * *

Steve caught up to her about a mile into the trees.

"Clint said you'd come out here," he said, slowing to a walk.

Cathryn didn't bother to be discreet as she tucked her wand behind her ear once more. "The trees here are very different from the ones I'm used to seeing in forests."

Steve glanced around. "Sure," he agreed. "Nothing like Germany or New York."

Cathryn nodded, and they walked on in silence.

* * *

"I think we've gone far enough," Steve said, quite some time later.

"Have we?" Cathryn murmured, but she turned and followed Steve along the path they'd forged, allowing the disturbances they'd made to lead them back.

* * *

She estimated they were halfway back when she said, "I'm not angry anymore."

Steve didn't reply, but he drifted ever so slightly closer, until they ended up walking side by side.

* * *

Natasha was a tall silhouette on the fence, a smaller figure to each side, when Cathryn and Steve finally left the trees. The sun was lower than Cathryn had expected - they'd been in the woods longer than she'd thought.

"Clint thought he'd have to go find you himself," Natasha greeted them. "Go tell your dad that they're back," she added, and the two children raced each other towards the house. "See anything interesting? Besides each other?"

"Natasha," Steve warned.

"Laura's nearly done with dinner," Natasha changed the subject. "The two of you missed lunch. And Fury's here."

"Fury?" Steve asked, looking towards the house.

"Hill called him. He's had a talk with Tony, and he'll explain the rest after dinner." Natasha herded them towards the house. "The two of you have about an hour," she said, chivvying them up the stairs and then to the upper floor of the house. "The rest of us have taken a rest. It's your turn for a nap." She all but shoved Cathryn into the room after Steve, and closed the door behind her. "Sleep well!" she called through the door.

Cathryn shook her head in exasperation.

"I'll take the floor," Steve offered.

"Don't be dim," Cathryn sniffed, toeing off her borrowed shoes and flopping onto the bed.

"Tony - "

"If he says anything, I'll turn him into a frog." She frowned. "I probably shouldn't. No telling how that gadget of his will react. And if you sleep on the floor, I will too," she threatened.

She didn't bother to hide her smug grin as Steve sat on the edge of the bed to untie his shoes.

* * *

Banner was the one to wake them up, knocking politely at the door.

"How'd you keep Stark away?" Cathryn asked when she and Steve joined Banner in the hallway.

"Natasha," was Banner's succinct reply.

Dinner was falsely lighthearted. Fury greeted Cathryn with a pleasant nod, and spent the entirety of the meal entertaining the children with fantastic stories that, so far as Cathryn could tell, were made up on the spot.

Only when Laura and Barton prepared to tuck their children into bed did matters turn to a more serious topic.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself more time," Fury said. "My contacts all say he's building something."

Lila ran into the kitchen, a paper clutched in her hands. Fury fell silent, filling a glass with tapwater, until the girl gave the paper to Natasha, received a hug in return, and darted back into the sitting room.

"The amount of vibranium he made off with," Fury continued, "I don't think it's just _one_ thing."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve's voice rumbled against her shoulder where it pressed into his side. She watched Stark as he collected a number of darts and prepared to throw.

"Oh, he's easy to track," Fury said. "He's everywhere. The guy is multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit."

Cathryn slipped out from under Steve's arm and joined Stark at his throwing line. He grudgingly passed her three of the darts.

"It still doesn't help us get and angle of any of his plans, though," Fury finished.

"He still going after launch codes?" Stark asked as Barton entered the kitchen, heading for the sink full of dirty dishes.

"Yes, he is," Fury replied. "But he's not making any headway."

Cathryn followed Barton to the sink. "Do you want me to take care of the dishes?" she asked quietly. "It's just one spell."

Barton shrugged. "Give me those, and it's a deal."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a _dare_ ," Stark pointed out.

Cathryn passed Barton the darts and drew her wand. Fury froze, knife part-way through a loaf of bread, his single eye watching as she directed her wand at the sink. Three seconds later, the dishes were industriously washing themselves, and Fury was back in motion. "Well, I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that," he said, laying a slice of cheese on his bread.

"Nexus?" Steve asked.

Cathryn shrugged as she rejoined him, slipping an arm about his waist.

"It's the world Internet hub in Oslo," Banner supplied. "Every byte of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth."

"What'd they say?" Barton asked, idly flinging one of the darts to the bullseye.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed." Fury took a drink of water.

"By whom?" Stark asked.

Barton slung the other darts at the same time; they joined the first one.

"Parties unkown." Fury didn't seem happy about not knowing.

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked. She was the only one still at the table.

"Ultron's got an enemy," Fury said. "That's not the same thing."

"The enemy of my enemy," Cathryn pointed out.

Fury inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

"I could visit Oslo," Stark suggested. "Find our unknown."

Natasha shook her head. "That's all well and good, but when I saw you boss, I was kind of hoping you'd have more."

"I do," Fury said. "I have you." He raised his glass to the room, but no one else made a move. He sighed. "Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, and ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream up, and some you couldn't." He glanced towards Cathryn and Steve. "And here we all are, back on Earth, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world. Ultron says that Avengers are the only thing between him, and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction." He gestured around the kitchen. "All this, laid in a grave." Barton glanced at the ceiling. "So stand." Fury sat, joining Natasha at the table. "Outwit the platinum bastard."

They were all silent for a moment.

"What if I could get some more help?" she asked.

"What do you mean, _help_?" Stark asked sharply. "We're the Avengers."

"Don't bother," Fury told Cathryn. "If I thought it'd do any good, I'd reach out myself. They're simply not concerned that anything we do could be a threat."

"They? Who are 'they'?" Stark pressed.

"I know people," Cathryn said. "People know _me_."

Fury shook his head. "Last time I tried, they quoted the rulebook at me. 1689, is what I believe they said."

Cathryn pursed her lips. The International Statute of Secrecy had gone into effect that year. "By the time they get their heads out of their arses, they'll be dead," she said at last.

Fury snorted, and Natasha said, "Steve doesn't like that kind of talk."

The others chuckled, except for Stark, who demanded, "Who are you _talking_ about?!"

"Doesn't involve you," Fury told him. "Back to Ultron - what does he want?"

Steve was the first to come to an answer. "To become better - better than us."

"He keeps building bodies," Barton agreed, turning a chair around and straddling it.

"Person bodies," Stark interjected, standing next to Fury. "But the human form is…inefficient. Biologically speaking, we're outmoded but he - he keeps coming back to it. Why?"

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed," Natasha said.

"We don't need protection," Banner said slowly, picking up the drawing that Lila had brought Natasha. "We need to evolve." He dropped the drawing. "Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?" Fury asked, lowering his glass to the table.

Cathryn glanced up at Steve, who shook his head slightly.

Banner took off his glasses. "Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

They all looked at each other.

"Shit," Steve said, pushing away from Cathryn. "The Cradle."

* * *

Natasha explained the Cradle to Cathryn as they changed.

"I thought you would be more weirded out by the idea of someone building themselves a new body," Natasha said, pulling a clean suit from the closet.

"It's not the first time I've heard of the concept," Cathryn said with a strained smile. Last time, she'd had a front-row seat. "How many suits do you have here, anyways?"

"Enough," Natasha said, passing a second suit to Cathryn. "It's either that, or the dirty one," Natasha told her.

"This is fine," Cathryn said. "I'll adjust it, if I have to." Her clothing charms weren't very good; she'd always depended on Lavender and Parvati for that. Even Hermione was better than her at that sort of thing.

Five minutes later, they were following Steve and Barton to the Quinjet.

"Where's Stark going?" Cathryn asked, jogging slightly to keep up with Steve, who seemed to have no trouble spotting where to set his feet despite the darkness.

"Oslo," he said. "And Fury's taking Banner back to the tower."

"Is it safe? For him," she elucidated.

"Hill said that if they'd planned on arresting him, they would've issued a warrant already," Steve explained. They followed Barton onto the jet. "Strap in," Steve said. "This one won't be gentle."

* * *

It took nearly four hours to fly to Korea. The last fifteen minutes Cathryn spent glowering at Steve. It wasn't just him, though - Natasha and Barton had agreed that she shouldn't go in.

"Steve knows what he's doing," Natasha said as they watched him jump from the building they'd dropped him at, half a mile away from the laboratory.

"I can be _invisible_ ," Cathryn pointed out.

"Ultron almost certainly has infra-red and heat-detecting vision," Barton said.

Cathryn subsided, reluctantly.

A minute later, Steve's voice came through the comms. "I'm in. The place is cleared out - Dr. Cho!"

"He's uploading himself into the body."

"Where?"

Natasha began typing furiously. Cathryn joined Barton in the cockpit, scanning the traffic below.

"The real power in inside the cradle," Dr. Cho panted. "The gem, its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the cradle to Stark." She breathed harshly. "Go. I'll be fine."

"You guys copy that?" Steve asked, his voice uneven. Cathryn could see him in her mind's eye, sprinting for an exit.

"We did," Barton acknowledged.

"I've got a private jet taking off across town," Natasha said. "No manifest."

"You got anything?" Barton asked Cathryn.

"No - wait," she pointed at a truck disappearing into a tunnel. "It looks like it might've come from the laboratory."

When it came out of the tunnel, Barton said. "It is. It's got a logo on the side. A semi, right above you, Cap. On the loop by the bridge." He flicked a button. "It's them. You got three with the Cradle, one in the cab. I could take out the drive," Barton offered.

"Negative," Steve responded. "That truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron."

"Is there any place you can let me down?" Cathryn asked. Even if she wasn't guaranteed to end up in that eerie not-Earth land of abandoned shadows, she wouldn't have risked Apparition. She still remembered the painful landing from Apparating mid-fall in Luna's house; the downward energy had carried over through the Apparition, and the three of them were lucky that none of them had broken a leg.

"I'm looking," Barton said, steering the jet towards the freeway. They were close enough to watch as Steve flung himself over the railing, landing on the top of the truck.

"I could fly down," Cathryn offered. "Bugger," she swore as the door to the truck was blasted open, sending Steve into the air.

"Well, he's definitely unhappy," Steve's voice came through the quinjet's speakers.

"No shit," Cathryn muttered. "Barton, get me down there."

"I can handle it," Steve said.

"You're not a match for him, Cap," Barton agreed with Cathryn. "Thirty seconds," he warned her.

Cathryn took the earpiece. Half a minute later, she was in the air, falling to allow herself the distance to clear the jet's airstream.

She caught up with the truck just as Ultron tossed Steve's shield to the ground.

As soon as her paws touched metal, she transformed. Her wand was in her hand in less than a second. "Accio shield!"

She caught the metal disk in time to block a blast from Ultron, the force of which pushed her back nearly a foot.

"You shouldn't have come," Ultron said, aiming a second blast at her. She blocked it with a spell, and the energy dissipated without affecting her.

"Thanks," Steve said, swinging up next to her and taking his shield. "Get the Cradle out of here. I'll take care of - "

Cathryn blocked another of Ultron's blasts, and the robot gave an exaggerated sigh before zooming towards them.

She ducked, but his punch clipped her shoulder, sending her over the edge. Steve grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to safety, and took a hit for his troubles. She nearly fell off a second time as he staggered back.

"I'm sending Nat in," Clint told them. "Just keep Ultron busy; she'll get the Cradle."

"Right," Cathryn agreed, her shoulder throbbing. She raised her wand. "Time to get serious."

The battle narrowed to a world of act and react, until Ultron picked Steve up and flew him into a nearby passenger train.

Cathryn swore. There was no way she could jump that far, and even if she could, the train was already falling behind; if she transformed, she wouldn't be able to fit through the hole that Ultron and Steve had made.

"Jump!"

Cathryn looked down. Pietro blurred in and out of sight, looking up at her whenever she caught a glimpse of her face.

"Natasha?"

"In the truck. She is fine."

She jumped.

They moved so fast, that it was almost as if they were still and the world crept by past them.

On the train, Wanda's red energy twined lazily through the air, and then shot towards Ultron when Pietro set Cathryn down. "Excuse me," he said, and vanished once more. Ultron jolted sideways, into the path of Wanda's power, which he blocked with a blast of his own energy.

"Don't do this - you waste your potential," Ultron said, raising his hands once more.

"What choice do we have?" Wanda sneered, her hands shrouded in red.

Ultron fired a blast at Pietro, who - predictably - popped up next to Wanda, unharmed. The blast rocketed through the front of the train, and Ultron followed in its path of destruction.

"Ultron's headed your way," Steve called, running to the front of the train. Cathryn followed, and frowned at the hissing and sparking control panel.

"What's going on?" she asked Steve.

"The Cradle's in the air," he explained curtly, staring at the last few hundred yards of railline that was getting shorter far too quickly. "Romanoff's sending it to Barton."

She didn't ask how. "We need to stop this thing."

"Brace yourself." She did.

The train broke through the end-barrier. Cathryn clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering due to the roughness of the train on asphalt.

Steve craned sideways to look out the hole that Ultron had left. "If you have the package, get it to Stark! Go!"

"He's got it?!" Cathryn asked.

"Cathryn, can you find Romanoff?" Steve demanded, turning to her.

"Is she not with Barton?"

"Can you find her!"

"Not from here!" Cathryn tucked her wand into her sleeve. "I need to get onto the roof."

He jumped onto the dead conductor's seat and punched the ceiling.

"I've got it," Pietro said.

Once more, the world moved around them, shifting sideways and down.

"Thanks," Cathryn said as they crouched on the roof, easily finding the Quinjet in the sky. "Get Wanda to stop this thing."

Pietro was gone between blinks. Cathryn shifted, flared her wings, and was airborne.

She circled in the air a few yards in front of the Quinjet, which was hovering above the ocean. Barton pointed somewhere behind her and spoke, and it was only due to her wolfish hearing that she could make out what he said.

"Ultron got her."

It took a minute for her to catch a scent, and she followed it, straining her wings for every ounce of speed.

* * *

Cathryn was thirty miles out when she gave up.

Ultron could fly faster than her, and he would never get tired.

* * *

She wasn't sure where to go, so she found her way to the place where the runaway train had finally stopped, but before she had to worry about landing, a sharp whistle from a nearby rooftop caught her attention.

Steve, Wanda, and Pietro watched her land and transform.

"Romanoff?" Steve asked.

"I was too far behind to hope to catch up," Cathryn explained, accepting the bottle of water that Pietro handed her. "Ultron was headed east, though."

Steve looked grim at the news, but nodded. "Barton took the Cradle to the tower."

"To Stark," Wanda spat.

Cathryn said nothing at the vehemence in her voice. "What are we doing?"

"Waiting," Steve replied. "Dr. Cho's called in a jet for us. It's not as fast as the Quinjet, but we'll be back in New York in six hours once it gets here."

* * *

On the flight to New York, Steve explained what they suspected Stark was doing.

"He's trying _again_?" Cathryn asked in disbelief. "After making Ultron, he thought it was a good idea to do the same thing, a _second_ time?"

"He thinks he is saving the world." Wanda was playing with a small ball of energy, trying to toss it between her hands, but it kept on fizzling out halfway between.

"Here." Cathryn moved to the seat next to her and used her wand to conjure a blue globe of light. "Orbit this."

Pietro interrupted a few minutes later. "Wake me when we get there."

"It is easier when I have anger," Wanda said a few minutes later.

"You can't be angry all the time," Cathryn pointed out.

Wanda gave her a sharp smile. "Perhaps."

* * *

When they arrived at the lab, Stark and Banner had yet to open the Cradle, which both pleased and disappointed Cathryn. While she was glad that they still had a chance to stop the two scientists, it also meant that there would be an argument to split the already-fractured team. And she wasn't sure who she agreed with; she didn't think that Stark and Banner were being very clever - assuming that they were, in fact, trying the same thing that had unleashed Ultron in the first place - but she could understand _why_ Stark thought the planet needed a higher protector, just as she could understand why Steve baulked at the idea of meddling with something that could set off a war larger than the one that Stark hoped to prevent.

"Stark, Banner." Cathryn preempted anything that Steve might have said.

Stark looked over at her, saw Steve, Wanda, and Pietro behind her, and sighed. "You couldn't have waited another three minutes?"

"Sorry," she said, "but we've got some issues with your project that we'd like to discuss."

"You?" Banner asked lowly. "Or her," he nodded to Wanda. "You sure she's not in your head, poking - "

"I know you're angry - " Wanda began, but Banner cut her off.

"Oh, we're way past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade."

"Shut it down," Steve commanded, stepping around Cathryn.

"Not gonna happen," Stark said lightly. "If you'll just hold your britches for - "

A slight wind ruffled Cathryn as Pietro blurred past her, zooming around the lab, pulling out power cords as he went. "No, no. Go on. You were saying?" he asked cheekily.

A number of things happened in quick succession. A gunshot rang out, followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass and a shrieked, "Pietro!" from Wanda.

Cathryn drew her wand, Stark called out, "I'm rerouting the upload!", and Thor skidded into the room.

She stood dumbly, wand raised but no idea of what spell she should use. She'd never fired at her allies, never had an occasion to think of how to take down people she considered her friends.

Steve's shield flew towards Stark, but Thor knocked it off course with his hammer as he strode towards the Cradle.

"What are you - ?!" Banner began.

"Lady Death, to me," Thor commanded, and Cathryn jerked, her legs taking her a few steps towards the Cradle before she could get them to stop.

"What the hell?!" she snapped at Thor, who leapt onto the Cradle, hammer already returned to his hand.

"There is no time," he said. "You know what you are, your own magic will compel you should I demand it."

She hesitated just long enough to feel the desire to move to the god, and the swell of the foreign magic she most often tried to forget. "Death bows to no-one," she warned, and strode the last few steps to the Cradle, allowing Thor to pull her on top.

"Cathryn - " Steve started to object, but Thor cut him off.

"There is no life without death, except for when death makes it so." He took her hand - her wand hand - and, without any sort of warning, wrapped it around the handle of his hammer so that the Elder Wand lay flush against the leather-wrapped metal.

Even before Thor's hand closed around hers, pinning it in place, she knew she couldn't have moved her hand away even if she'd wanted to. Every hair on her body stood on end, and the skin of her scalp crawled.

"Brace yourself." Thor hefted Mjölnir into the air; for a third time, blue lightning sprang around the hammer, but unlike times previous, it was controlled.

Cathryn squinted against the brightness that gathered between heartbeats. She could feel her wand vibrating against her palm, nearly as much as her holly wand had vibrated during the Priori Incantato at Voldemort's rebirth. At the same time, despite Thor's presence, she could feel the weight of Mjölnir pressing at her, growing exponentially heavier with each millisecond, until only Thor's hand over hers kept her arm from collapsing beneath the hammer's weight.

She gritted her teeth against the force, and the wand began to burn against her skin. Lighting crackled and jumped, arcing from Mjölnir to Thor, from Mjölnir to Cathryn, until she cried out, "I can't - "

Thor roared, directing the head of Mjölnir at the Cradle. The blue lightning surged to the casket. When it was gone, after-images played across Cathryn's eyes.

Thor's hand loosened, and Cathryn gladly slipped her hand off of the hammer, straightening from the crouch that Thor had forced her into. She was in the process of putting her wand back up her sleeve when the cradle exploded, catapulting her into the air. Her back collided with something that broke, digging into her briefly, and then she fell to the ground, turning awkwardly to avoid snapping her wand (although the Elder Wand had always repaired itself in the past, there was no way to predict how _long_ it would sit about in pieces, and she had a strong feeling that she'd need it in the coming few days).

"Oww…" she groaned, a little surprised that no one had come to check on her. When she finally opened her eyes, blinking wetness from them, it wasn't difficult to see why none of the others were moving.

The Cradle hadn't exploded due to a malfunction or an excess of power - a man of metal and red skin balanced on the remaining rim of the Cradle, intensely taking in the room with an expression of confusion, which morphed almost instantly into rage when he saw Thor who, unlike Cathryn, had recovered enough to stand.

Instead of engaging the unknown - because he certainly didn't _look_ like a robot, as Ultron had - Thor diverted him through a glass wall and towards the windows of the tower. Cathryn expected the synthesized man to continue on his path, but an invisible force caught him before he could crash through the window, and he hovered there, staring out at the city. Thor flew after him, landing in the lounge area on the level below them.

The Avengers began to move. Steve was quickest, snatching his shield from the ground and jumping after Thor, but the god held him back from attacking with a rapid gesture. Stark still had on most of his Iron Man suit, and Barton had a gun out, though he wasn't pointing it anywhere.

Banner alone didn't arm himself, and stooped to help Cathryn up.

"Thanks," she murmured, and then joined everyone else in watching the red-and-silver-skinned man watch the city.

When he finally did turn away from the window, most of the red on his body darkened to a navy blue, until he appeared to be wearing a suit not unlike the ones standard-issued by SHIELD.

Thor set his hammer on a glass table with a gentle _clink_ , and everyone relaxed. Cathryn walked forwards - gingerly, at first, and more confidently when no sharp pains appeared - following Banner and Wanda down the stairs to where Thor, Steve, and the others had already congregated.

"I am sorry." The nonhuman said, his voice soft and cultured. "That was…odd." He glanced first at Thor, and then at Cathryn, inclining his head towards each of them. "Thank you."

Thor sighed, apparently relieved about something.

Cathryn frowned. "Who are you?" she asked bluntly.

The nonhuman also frowned. "I…am not sure who I am. I know who you are, and who you wanted me to be, but I do not know who I am."

"That was helpful," Steve pointed out. "Thor, why did you help create - this? Why did you make Cathryn help you?"

"I'm more interested in _how_ he made Black help him," Stark chimed in.

"Well, don't ask me," Cathryn muttered. "I'm not entirely sure either."

"Thor?" Steve prompted.

"At the abode of Clint, during the…exchange with Lady Black - " Cathryn was sure everyone knew the _exchange_ Thor was speaking of. She wouldn't quickly forget her part in nearly electrocuting Clint's daughter. " - I had a vision. It was brief, so I traveled to a place known to mine kin, to revisit the vision."

"You can _do_ that?" Steve blurted out.

"Magic," Cathryn reminded him.

"Science," Stark rebutted, before Banner hushed them all with a pointed stare.

"A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life, and at its center is that." Thor pointed at the yellow stone embedded in the non-human's forehead, glowing gently.

"The _gem_?" Banner asked incredulously.

"Are you forgetting the other glowing approximately-rock-sized-thing from outer space?" Barton asked. "Because I sure have some vivid non-memories of it."

"Clint is correct in his comparison," Thor said. "That is the Mind Stone. It is one of the six Infinity Stones, of which the Tesseract is another. Together, they are the greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in their destructive capabilities."

There was a fraction of a second of silence, and then -

"Why would you bring - " Steve started, but was cut off by Stark's, "Where are the other four?"

"We should focus on the one on Earth, don't you think?" Cathryn said, not bothering to temper the snide tone that had snuck into her voice. "And why _did_ you - _we_ \- make him - " she jerked her chin at the nonhuman, which she decided to label as a 'him' because of his definitively masculine appearance and behavior. " - if you knew he was in possession of one of the Infinity Stones?"

"Because Stark spoke truly. The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron. Not alone." Thor frowned, his face grim. "Your powers," he said, speaking towards the twins, "and Ultron himself pale in comparison to what the Mind Stone can unleash. It is perhaps the most powerful of the Infinity Stones. Even without the Mind Stone, Ultron is capable of destroying us completely."

"Even you?" Stark asked flippantly.

Thor nodded gravely. "I am not immortal, though it may seem so to ones with such short life-spans. We all must die."

"Right," Stark muttered. "Valar morghulis."

"I do not understand."

"It is a reference to a popular television show and book series," the nonhuman supplied.

"Why does your vision sound like Jarvis?" Steve asked.

"We reconfigured Jarvis' matrix to fit into the - for lack of easier explanation - _space_ that Ultron was supposed to insert his consciousness into." Stark seemed both proud and sad.

"So you're Jarvis?" Cathryn asked the nonhuman.

"I am not Jarvis, and neither am I Ultron. I am…I _am_."

Wanda spoke for the first time. "I looked in your head and saw annihilation."

"Look again."

Barton scoffed. "Her seal of approval means jack to me."

"It does not matter if you agree," Thor said sternly. "With the Mind Stone on our side, we have a hope for victory."

"Is it?" Steve asked, and then turned to the nonhuman. "Are you? On our side?"

"I do not think that it is that simple."

"Well, it better get real simple real soon," Barton muttered.

"I am not like you. I do not choose to align myself with you because of what you believe. Each person is entitled to their beliefs."

"What do you believe?" Steve challenged.

"I believe in life. Ultron does not. He will end it all."

"Enemy of my enemy, then," Stark summarized. "Welcome to the team."

"What's taking Ultron so long, then?" Cathryn asked.

Steve's frown deepened. "Why hasn't he gone for the nuclear codes, if Jarvis isn't protecting them any longer?"

"A surprisingly good question," Stark agreed. "Except that I gave the Nexus a different AI to help them keep up what Jarvis was doing. I _am_ a philanthropist. Back to his question - what's Ultron waiting for?"

"You." Everyone turned to the nonhuman.

"Where?" Banner asked.

"Sokovia," Barton supplied. "He's got Nat there, too. She managed to get me a message."

Banner nodded sharply, and then took a step towards the nonhuman. "If we're wrong about you, if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be…"

"What will you do?" the nonhuman interrupted Banner, staring at him for a long moment before continuing. "I do not want to kill Ultron. He is unique, and he is in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth, so he must be destroyed. Every form he has built, every trace of his presence on the net." He turned, meeting each of their eyes as he continued to speak. "We have to act now. And not one of us can do it without the others. Maybe I am a monster. I do not think I would know if I were one, and there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go." He started towards the passage to the quinjet, handing Thor his hammer on his way.

Cathryn wasn't the only one to do a double-take at the non-human's casual handling of Mjölnir, but she was the first to recover.

"What do we call you?" she called after him.

The nonhuman paused. "Vision," he said at last. "One was my maker, and another my forger." Vision continued on his way.

Thor blinked at Mjölnir, adjusting his grip. "Right," he muttered, and then clapped Stark on the shoulder. "Well done."

"Three minutes," Steve said. "Get what you need."

"Can I make a side-trip, and meet the rest of you there?" Cathryn blurted out before the others could get more than a few feet.

"Where?" Steve asked.

"My friend's house," Cathryn said, trying to communicate the magical nature of her friends without actually saying anything. "An old friend. They got my things from Sokovia, or should've."

"I see." Steve nodded, and Cathryn knew he'd understood the message. "Thor, can you take her there?"

"I do not believe so. I have never taken anyone through a storm with me."

Steve didn't seem like he was going to agree, so Cathryn added, "I don't feel safe going into a fight without my armor."

"Low shot," Barton muttered. "Give me the coordinates," he said in a louder voice. "I'll calculate the estimated add-time and then Cap can decide."

She didn't know the coordinates. "Do you have a map?" she asked instead.

* * *

Steve ended up giving the detour the go-ahead, and Cathryn spent most of the flight to Bulgaria in a state of apprehension.

When the jet touched down, about a mile and a half from the edge of Viktor and Yvette's wards, Cathryn was down the ramp before it'd even touched the ground.

"Ten minutes!" she called, and then transformed, leaping into the air and using the low clouds for cover.

Viktor and Yvette were waiting in the garden. Yvette held a surprisingly fat infant (Cathryn had forgotten how chubby young children were) while Viktor plaited a crown of flowers into Rina's hair, only to have his work disturbed when the girl leapt to her feet with a happy cry of, "Krŭstnitsa!"

Cathryn hoisted her goddaughter onto her hip. "I cannot stay long," she warned Rina as she joined Viktor, Yvette, and Aleksandar.

Rina wriggled, so Cathryn set her down. "My brodder, Alek," the girl said proudly, pointing to the infant.

"Your godson," Yvette said, standing and passing the baby to Cathryn, who smiled down at his confused expression. She made a face, and Alek took five seconds to decide to give a toothless smile.

"I haven't long," Cathryn repeated, pressed a kiss to Alek's forehead, and passed him back to his mother. "Viktor - my things?"

"This way."

Viktor had stored her trunk in his office, and left her there. When she emerged, feeling safe in her dragon-hide armor, a wand strapped to each leg, he was just outside the door.

"You vill be safe." It was an order, more than anything.

"I'll come back," Cathryn agreed, giving Viktor a quick hug, which he returned. "Thank you," she added. "For getting my things."

Viktor shrugged. "It vas easy."

"I'll bring Wanda and Pietro with me when I come back," she told him as they headed for the front door. "To meet their cousins."

Viktor nodded. "Vhen?"

Cathryn shrugged. "Tomorrow, maybe. I'll take my trunk with me then."

"Fight vell."

"I will."

She took flight, circling a serious Yvette and a laughing, waving Rina before heading towards the jet.

She was greeted with, "You disappeared," when she stepped into the jet.

"Magic," was all the explanation she gave, seating herself next to Steve.

Stark didn't have time to press for a better answer. Cathryn hadn't even had time to worry about fixing her mask into place - it was harder without a ponytail to tie the ends around, though magic made an easy solution - before Barton had the jet in the air once more, headed almost directly north.

* * *

Cathryn was given the part of the city closest to the citadel to clear. When the first woman slammed the door in her face, Cathryn resorted to less legal measures.

A series of Confundus Charms, Stunning Spells, and Binding Spells left her wands, followed every few minutes by a Porticus Charm. She dearly hoped that the clearing she sent the citizens to - the one that Viktor had lead her to the first a few months before - was far enough away be able to escape any collateral damage that might accrue during the fight. If she was even luckier, the Sokovians would be smart when they saw the battle and go further into the woods.

Wanda was even more effective than Cathryn, reaching through the entirety of the quadrant assigned to her and into Cathryn's with ease. Cathryn left for an area that Wanda's power couldn't reach.

She took a short rest on a rooftop, scanning nearby buildings with Human-Revealing Charms as she caught her breath. Cars, bicycles, and foot traffic streamed away from the citadel like ants away from encroaching water. She swallowed heavily before transforming and winging her way to a building that had resulted positive for human presence - she didn't think their efforts would be enough to entirely prevent civilian casualties.

She'd just Portkeyed the stubborn old man and his wide-eyed grandchildren to join the others when the screams met her ears. Explosions followed not long after, and Cathryn rushed to the window.

Robots darted through the air, and panicked Sokovians raced for cover; not all of them made it.

Cathryn swore, and began firing at the robots, wishing she could call in backup, but the 'special' earpiece that Stark had tinkered with hadn't survived much longer than five minutes. Most of her spells missed, and the ones that did collide didn't seem to do anything beyond attract their attention.

Four of them turned to the window she was at. Cathryn might have been a Gryffindor, but she wasn't stupid. She darted for the door, only just clearing the apartment before the walls exploded; she stumbled, but managed to stay upright as she sprinted down the hallway towards the staircase.

The robots didn't pursue her, but her relief only lasted until she peered around the corner on the ground floor. A large group of Ultron's henchmen - though could they really be called that, if each of them was Ultron? - loitered outside the building, shooting at the street around them. Even as she watched, a stray bullet shattered the main window of the lobby of the building she was in.

"Bollocks," she muttered to herself, arming herself with a wand in each hand. She frowned, and then switched the Elder Wand to her left hand; normally, she wielded the holly wand left-handed, but today it just didn't feel as comfortable.

It took her thirty seconds to sort through her arsenal of spells to find ones that would, hopefully, work. If none of them did, she wasn't going to have a fun next few minutes.

Spells decided, Cathryn squared her shoulders and stepped into line of sight - and line of fire - of the robots.

Her first spell caught their attention - an over-powered _reducto_ which did nothing more than elicit a painful screech from the metal breastplate of the robot it'd impacted - and her second spell enraged them as the Gouging Curse blew a hole the size of a Quaffle through the same robot's chest. The robot crumpled, eyes fading, but Cathryn was too busy killing the robots who were rushing towards her, dodging their fire where she could, and blocking it where she couldn't. Only one bullet escaped her attention, and it bounced off her dragon-hide armor, leaving her with nothing more than a painful ache that she knew would be a bruise before too long.

It took Cathryn nearly two minutes to dispatch the robots, keeping them at bay with wind-shields and gusts of bright blue fire, and only when the last of the robots was firmly in six different pieces could she stop to inspect her wands. The Gouging Curse, which should've been a murky brown, had been more of a muddy blue than anything - even from her holly wand, although the effect had been more pronounced in the Elder Wand; the fire spell she'd used should have produced hot white flames, not electric blue.

She didn't have much time to consider the problem. More robots were already headed in her direction, likely called to her location by their fallen brethren.

Cathryn didn't wait for them to come to her. She charged at them, wand-tips drawing blue-brown lines through the air as she fired curse after curse at the robots. After the seventh was dead, she took a second to catch her breath, and was just beginning to jog towards where she'd last seen Steve and the others when the ground shuddered beneath her.

For a terrible second, she was sure that more robots were about to erupt from the ground, or perhaps just a single very large one, but the earth simply continued to tremble and jerk for nearly twenty seconds. An opportunistic robot dive-bombed her, and was caught in the crossfire of her wands, falling in four pieces the rest of the way to the ground.

At thirty seconds, the jerking stopped, but the ground was still rumbling, nearly humming beneath her feet, and her body felt heavier than it normally did, as if she was taking off very slowly on a broom. Cathryn ran, relying on the sound of distant explosions to guide her to where, hopefully, there would be someone who knew what was going on.

She swore when she saw the edge, the rest of Sokovia growing smaller and smaller below. If she'd had time, she might've stayed to enjoy the view. As it was, she didn't think that this was going to be anything near a pleasant flight.

Cathryn continued to fight her way towards the noisiest part of the floating chunk of city. She killed a few handfuls of robots, saved two citizens from falling to their deaths as the ground near the edge continued to crumble away, and a further four from being crushed by a structurally unsound building.

She could actually see Steve, blurring in an economy of motion on the bridge that jutted off the side of the floating city, when the robots all stopped, the same voice emanating from each of them.

"Do you see?" Ultron asked at large. "The beauty of it? The…inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword, and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure." Cathryn stopped paying attention to Ultron's monologue, and used the time to perforate as many robots as she could. It was more difficult than she'd hoped, because they dodged her attacks even as they continued to speak. "Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal."

"We'll see about that," Cathryn muttered to herself, joining Steve on the bridge a few harrowing minutes later.

"What's going on?" she asked, grunting as she blocked a shot from one of the robots.

Steve's shield hacked the robot in half. "Ultron has somehow made the city float."

"Yeah, I got that. _Why_ is he doing it?"

They split up for a few moments. Cathryn shot down a pair of robots heading for the building that Natasha was guarding. When she turned around, Steve was just finishing wrenching his shield through the neck of another robot.

"You ever drop something from really high up?" Steve asked.

Dread solidified in her stomach. "I see." Even Fred and George had taken heed after the scolding McGonagall had subjected them to for tossing a dungbomb off the Astronomy tower. It had taken nearly six months for Hagrid to completely cover up the disproportionately large crater left behind.

Steve nodded.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Stark's checking it out. I'll ask him."

They separated again. Cathryn blew the arms off of a robot, pinned it beneath a car, and then set the car on fire.

There were no more robots in sight, so Cathryn began using debris to blockade the windows to the building that Natasha was guarding - the building with the most Sokovians sheltering inside.

"Make sure to keep a few paths open," Natasha directed, joining Cathryn. "Or they'll just pin us down and bomb us." The floating city slid into the clouds, and her line of sight was reduced to a few yards.

Steve ushered a trio of cowering citizens over, shield on his back but still on guard, eyes scanning the mists warily for the tell-tale glow of Ultron's many bodies. "This is just a lull," he warned them, sending the Sokovians inside the building. "The next wave is going to hit any minute. What do you got, Stark?" He went back into the cloud-obscured city, voice vanishing quickly in the water-dense air as he responded to whatever Stark had told him - by the tone of his voice, it wasn't anything good.

Cathryn placed a last chunk of broken concrete atop a pile of rubble, and then used her magic to clear a path in the clouds that they were passing through so that the citizens could see more easily. She only needed to hold the spell for a handful of seconds because they were ascending quicker than she'd realized, and the city soon broke through the upper cloud layer. Spotting Natasha and Steve near the middle of the bisected plaza, Cathryn jogged over, ignoring the way her throat burned from the rapidly chilling air in ways she hadn't felt since third year Quidditch.

"If Stark finds a way to blow this rock - " Natasha was saying as Cathryn slowed to a halt between them.

"Not till everyone's safe," Steve interrupted.

"He's going to _blow us up_?" Cathryn interjected, making sure to keep her voice down. There was no point in panicking the already terrified citizens.

"Everyone up here versus everyone down there?" Natasha asked incredulously, ignoring Cathryn. "There's no math there."

"That's tripe." Cathryn spoke before Steve could respond. "Everyone gets hurt either way, regardless of what someone thinks is the greater good. Even if Stark does manage to blow this rock up - and somehow, I think he's good for it - where are the pieces going to go? People 'down there' will die either way." She frowned. _Third year Quidditch_. "Unless...no," she shook her head, turning around to stare at the expanse of shaky buildings behind her. "It's too big," she muttered.

"That's what Ultron's going for," Natasha said, somewhat snide.

"If we don't stop this rock, it could trigger global extinction," Steve said, turning to face her. His brows furrowed when he saw the look on her face. "You've got an idea?"

"Maybe." Cathryn smiled grimly. "It's less chance of succeeding than a kneazle does of catching a Snidget, but - "

Steve's head jerked towards the clouds as a large metal plate protruded fin-like from the white expanse, the rest of the air-ship emerging quickly. It didn't take Cathryn long to recognize the Helicarrier.

"I thought - " she started, but Pietro blurred past, slowing down to visible speeds as he gaped at the ship.

Steve shook his head. "Fury, you son of a bitch."

The response from the comm was enough to make Natasha smirk for a brief second before Pietro turned to them, an awed smile on his face. "This is SHIELD?"

"This is what SHIELD is supposed to be," Steve said as the sides of the Helicarrier opened, releasing smaller airships that headed for the floating city.

Pietro watched as one of the airships approached, slowing down as it hovered level with the side of the city, extending a ramp to join with the broken edge of the bridge. "This is not so bad."

Steve turned towards the building full of Sokovians. "Let's load them up."

* * *

Another skybattle erupted as Cathryn directed the emerging Sokovians towards the nearest airship, shuttling them towards a second rescue shuttle when Steve signaled that the first had filled up. When she could spare a glance at the robots in the air, she could distinguish Stark and one other metal-clad humanoid fighting, but wasn't sure if the other was a person or yet another of Stark's AI's.

She checked the diner with a Hominum Revelio just to be sure that it was abandoned, and was about to join Wanda and Hawkeye when Pietro materialized next to her.

"The god says to go to the church."

He began to speed up again - to fetch Wanda, no doubt - until Cathryn asked, "Where?" There were, after all, many churches in Sokovia.

"That way." He gestured. "It was closed for repair when you lived here."

By the time she recalled where to go, Pietro was already gone.

Cathryn arrived at the church - or what was left of it - at the same time as Steve, who raised his shield as if to fling it at her before realized that the flying object was a cynogriffin, not a robot. She landed smoothly on two feet and drew her wands.

"What's going on?"

"If a robot touches that - " he nodded to the silvery metal contraption protruding from the center of the ruins " - the city accelerates towards the ground."

"Boom, we're all dead," Stark supplied as Thor flung his hammer at an aspiring kamikaze robot. Pietro stood next to Wanda, and Vision and Hawkeye shot down any robot they could see.

"How fast?" Cathryn asked.

"What?" Steve tensed, but allowed Wanda to rip a robot apart.

"Until the thrusters turn on, I can't calculate the speed," Stark said. "Where is - "

Natasha joined the protective circle around the apparatus. "What's the drill?"

"This is the drill," Stark pointed to the metal protrusion. "If Ultron gets a hand on the core, we lose."

"What if I - " Cathryn began, but Hulk stomped into the church, shaking off the remains of two of Ultron's shells.

Hulk slotted himself between herself and Steve, driving Cathryn to join Wanda on the broad step leading to the dais where the drill head was situated. Ultron's main body was visible, no more than a eighty yards away.

There was a moment of tense silence, and then Thor roared out, "Is that the best you can do?!"

Cathryn was sure she wasn't the only female in the room to roll her eyes; she wasn't a horror-movie connoisseur by any means, but even she knew that those words were usually followed by -

Masses of robots emerged from nowhere, and Ultron spread his arms, encompassing his bodies with a gesture. "This is the best I can do."

"You had to ask," Steve sighed, hefting his shield to a ready position.

"This is exactly what I wanted," Ultron nearly crooned as his other bodies streamed towards the church. "All of you, against all of _me_. How can you possibly hope to stop me?"

The robots swarmed them just as Stark said, "Like the old man said. Together."

Cathryn lost herself to the fighting. Steve had joined her and Wanda between two arms of the drill, but sometime during the first wave of robots Cathryn was maneuvered to be next to Thor. A lucky lunge from one of Ultron's bodies drove Cathryn onto the head of the drill itself, and she balanced on it as best she could, taking out any robot that got past the other Avengers. Images of the others snuck in as she turned and bent to get clear shots at her targets.

Thor with an almost gleeful snarl on his features as he sent blue lightning arcing through several robots at once.

Wanda's look of shock as Iron Man took care of a robot too close for her to destroy without the debris injuring herself.

Hulk struggling under a veritable backpack of robots.

Barton abandoning his bow, useless in close quarters.

As the tide of robots slowed, motion in the corner of her eye had Cathryn turning in time to see Ultron diving for Vision. Without thinking, she raised her left hand and directed the wand in it at the largest of Ultron's bodies. She didn't need an incantation; electric blue energy rocketed from the end, striking Ultron squarely in the chest.

She was only half-aware of red energy snatching apart a robot only inches from colliding with her. Ultron slammed into the side of the church and tried to fly up, but Vision was there, blocking his escape. Thor hurried over, preventing Ultron from landing, and Stark closed in from the left.

Thor was the first to add his power to hers, lightning almost the exact hue as her magic crackling up the length of Ultron's body. Vision's yellow beam was next, and Stark's twin repulsors followed barely a split-second later. Under their combined torrent, Ultron's body shivered, shimmered, and then began to lose the outermost plates of metal, which hissed and steamed as they oozed into the cracks between the paving stones of the church.

Ultron made another attempt at escape upwards; Vision's beam of light faltered and then guttered out, but Cathryn, Stark, and Thor didn't relent. By the time Ultron was nothing more than a puddle of rapidly solidifying metal on the floor, the fight had ended.

Cathryn loosened her grip on the wand - the Elder Wand, she noted, though by logic she should've used her right hand - her _dominant_ hand, and the holly wand within. "Where's Banner?" she asked Natasha, who was watching the smoldering remains of Ultron with extraordinarily blank features.

"Took off after the surviving baby-Ultrons," Barton said.

"So did Vision and Thor and Stark," Steve said, glancing around at the floor, which was liberally covered with broken robots. "We gotta move out. Even I can tell the air is getting thin." Cathryn frowned; she felt just fine now, although perhaps she was more accustomed to thin air after so many years of Quidditch. "You guys get to the boats," Steve directed, nodding towards Natasha and Barton even as he placed a hand on the small of Cathryn's back and tried to usher her in the right direction. "I'll sweep for stragglers. Be right behind you."

She wanted to object, and had even opened her mouth to do so, but a sharp look from Barton had her nodding in grudging acceptance. Steve was the general in this sort of situation - especially with Thor haring off after escaping Ultrons - and it wouldn't do any good to challenge him now.

"What about the core?" Barton asked.

"I'll protect it," Cathryn and Wanda said at the same time.

"It is my city," Wanda protested. "It is my duty."

"You're exhausted, and you've only just begun to realize your powers. I've had years to hone mine." Not a lie, but not completely true either; only a few - one or two, really - of her spells worked well against the robots, but she didn't particularly expect that there were many left behind. Most had fled, in hopes of Ultron surviving to recoup in safety. "You should help your people," Cathryn added. "They're more familiar with you and Pietro than they are with the rest of us." The obstinate expression faded somewhat from Wanda's face, but didn't go away completely until Cathryn pointed out, "You'll be able to keep an eye on your brother if you're with him."

"Pietro can take care of himself," Wanda said, but Cathryn already knew that she'd won the argument. The twins were each other's greatest strength, but greatest weakness as well.

"Nat, Maximoff," Barton interrupted the silence between Wanda and Cathryn. "This way."

Wanda stalked after the two SHIELD agents, sparks of red flashing at her fingertips.

"You'll be fine?" Steve asked as soon as the others were out of earshot.

Cathryn spared him an amused glance over her shoulder as she took a guard position over the drill, but her words were completely serious. "I've gotten this far, haven't I? Hurry up and get yourself on a transport. Unlike me, you can't fly."

Steve nodded once and disappeared with one last, "Be on guard. One of Ultron's bodies might still be around."

He was gone too fast for Cathryn to reply.

Thirty seconds passed before a sudden gust of wind announced Pietro's arrival, sending stray scrap-metal chittering across the broken bodies of robots.

No sooner did he begin to speak than a half-broken Ultron lunged for the drill. Pietro's words were lost in the explosion as Cathryn blasted it apart with a Gouging Curse followed closely by a Reductor Curse to its newly unprotected innards.

"What was that?" she asked when the noise of raining metal stopped.

"I see you have everything under control," Pietro commented, kicking idly at a piece of robot that had come to a rest against his foot. "Where is Wanda? I thought she would be here."

"She left with Barton and Natasha," Cathryn supplied, conjuring mirrors on the walls so that she could have full view of her surroundings. That last Ultron had been uncharacteristically stupid, coming at her from the side instead of from her back, but she couldn't count on luck twice. "Where's your comm?"

Pietro shrugged. "Fell out. What way?"

"Towards the Helicarrier."

He tensed to run, but then relaxed. "You will be okay here?" He was more timid than Steve had been when he'd asked much the same question; Cathryn barely restrained from rolling her eyes.

"Ask that robot."

With a quicksilver grin, Pietro said, "Yes, I see your point," and then was gone, leaving only a few of the lightest shards of metal to shiver in his wake.

* * *

Two minutes later, Cathryn was short on breath as she spun, casting different spells from each wand in an attempt to keep the fifteen ragged robots from triggering the core. With so few of them now available, the Ultron program had decided to overwhelm her as best it could, sending all but two of the robots directly at Cathryn instead of towards the vibranium drill.

She'd seen through that tactic almost instantly, and the only reason it took her more than a minute to dispatch the robots was because Ultron had retained the presence of mind to shatter the mirrors that she'd been using to keep track of them all.

Thor arrived exactly twenty seconds after the last Ultron lost its head.

"The citizens are clear," Thor greeted, striding towards her, Mjölnir grasped easily in one hand. "You would do well to join them, lest you fall afoul of the actions of myself and the Man of Iron."

"What are you planning on doing?"

"A most complex plot, full of sciences that I do not entirely comprehend," Thor replied, and then tilted his head slightly, finger rising to his ear. "Stark has relayed that the reaction will vaporize the city."

"Vaporize, or just blow up?" Cathryn asked, wishing, not for the first time, that her comm hadn't shorted out.

"Stark says, 'yes'," Thor said after a few seconds.

"And what about - " she cut off as the ground jolted beneath her, and the sudden decrease of gravity left her unsteady for a moment. "What was - "

"You must leave, Lady Griffin," Thor said sternly, setting himself into a stable stance. Cathryn was confused at his motion, but the next moment her confusion was driven away as her stomach lodged in her throat as the ground fell away from beneath her. She caught up to the plummeting city a few seconds later, landing awkwardly on a robot's lower arm; only the dragon-hide leather of her boots kept her from twisting her ankle.

"Leave!" Thor commanded.

Cathryn prepared to transform, but Thor had already raised Mjölnir into the air, lightning snapping angrily from the ball of pure electricity that was forming at the head of the hammer. She would have to be suicidal to try and fly from the church; electrocution was not a way she would like to die.

She was nearly to an archway, struggling against the weird gravity, when Thor roared out, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WILL NOT WORK!?"

Her wands were back in her hands, and she didn't even think about the impossibility of what she was about to do as she incanted, "Arresto momento!"

Nothing happened. They continued to fall, and Thor was struggling with the massive amounts of electricity he had collected and yelling at Stark through the communication system.

Cathryn wondered if she should have used transfiguration instead - tried to Vanish the entire city - but then, even Professor Dumbledore would've had trouble Vanishing something this large, though now she didn't really have much of a choice, so she might as well end the -

Her knees buckled at the sudden decrease in speed and consequent momentary increase in gravity, and had Thor not been a demi-god, he likely would have died from the escaped lightning bolts that impacted his chest and back, leaving smoking holes in his cape.

"Whatever sorcery you have worked, do so again," Thor urged. "Stark does not have the required energy to explode the city."

"Magic doesn't work like that," Cathryn said, and threw more of her concentration into the spell she'd nearly given up on. _It's not just the words_ , twelve-year-old Hermione explained eagerly, _it's will and imagination too_.

This magic wasn't like what she'd been doing earlier. There were no lights or flashes to show that she was even doing anything. She gritted her teeth and searched for the odd energy inside her that she now knew to be from the Deathly Hallows, easily ignored but always lurking in the recesses of her mind.

It seemed different than before - larger, perhaps, or maybe just more awake, more _eager_.

She put the matter aside for later, returning to the spell that had once saved her from a messy end on the Quidditch Pitch. The pressure against her feet and knees and back increased as the enormous chunk of earth slowed even more, and then became so powerful that she had to drop to one knee to avoid collapsing altogether.

At last, the pressure abated.

"How - " she coughed, and then started again, voice wavering with strain as the floating mass pulled at her magic. "How far up are we?"

Thor had dissipated the excess electricity. "Stark, what is the distance to the ground?"

As it turned out, the communication device was unnecessary. Stark himself landed with a muffled _clang_ , face plate sliding out of the way. "One hundred four and six-tenths meters," he answered, staring at Cathryn. "What - are _you_ doing this?"

"No, I just like to kneel before I die," she snapped, and paid for the momentary lapse of concentration when they all dropped a few feet.

"So you're controlling - this?" Stark waved his arms in a manner that she assumed was meant to mean 'the floating rock'.

" _Yes_." She hardly thought it necessary to answer such an obvious question.

"Amazing," Stark muttered, and then added, "Well, let us down slowly and there you go, easy as pie."

* * *

It was easier said than done. The spell she was using wasn't meant for fine control of objects, let alone a piece of land large enough to be an entire island if it'd landed in the water. Still, she managed. In fits and starts, they descended. Stark helped by making snide comments about her control in between gauging the distance from the lowest tip of the floating rock to the ground; Thor merely watched, inscrutable.

The removed portion of Novi Grad did not want to fit back in where it had come from. Cathryn was shaking with exhaustion by the time the lowest rocks ground against the earth. The tremors of the contact rocked through her magic even more powerfully than the slight quiver of the ground beneath her aching knee, and the magic failed.

By the time the earth stopped shaking from the reluctant reunion of the two parts of Novi Grad, she lay on the ground, feeling as though she had just spent an entire day battling high winds and Death Eaters on the Quidditch Pitch. Thor crouched over her, ready to block anything shaken loose by the earthquake she'd caused.

Stark had taken to the air to get a better view of the city and surrounding land, but now he returned. "Fury wants us - it's not safe here. There's a ninety percent chance of aftershocks in the next few minutes as everything resettles."

Cathryn lay still for a few seconds, and then sighed. Moving didn't sound very pleasant. Thor was kind enough to take the matter out of her hands, and flew her up to the helicarrier himself.

* * *

"Six point four."

"What?" Cathryn looked up from her still-trembling fingers.

Steve lowered himself to the floor next to her, although she didn't know how he'd found her. She'd picked this room because it was the very much out of the way in the mostly-empty helicarrier.

"The earthquake." He'd already taken off his mask, although his shield was still on his back, preventing him from fully relaxing against the wall. "A few broken bones and concussions from falling objects, but no one died, which is more than can be expected from what would've happened if you hadn't been there."

Cathryn didn't know how to explain that she wasn't hiding because she thought she'd killed someone. "Oh. Thanks." They sat in silence for too many tense seconds. "How is - everyone?" she finished lamely.

"The team or the Sokovians?"

"Both."

"We're turning the citizens over to the Sokovian government - Fury has everything under control. The team…" he trailed off, and Cathryn felt a foreboding crawl up her spine to the nape of her neck, leaving prickled hairs and goosebumps in its wake.

"Who's dead? Why didn't you _say_ before - "

"No one is dead," Steve interrupted, placing a calming hand on her knee. "But - Pietro Maximoff isn't doing well."

She stood, placing a hand on the wall to steady herself. "Where is he?"

"Medbay. We're short on staff, but - "

"Show me."

They went quickly through the corridors, Cathryn a half-step behind Steve, partly because he was leading the way, and partly because she was still not recovered from the battle's incredible drain on her magic and body.

She knew when they were getting close to the medical rooms when the hair on the back of her neck started to stand up. The reason why was apparent as soon as they rounded the next corner. Wanda paced stormily in the corridor, tinges of red seeping from her fingers, swirling in her hair and around her body like an angry aura. When the younger woman spotted Cathryn, she paused, and then strode forward.

"Do something."

"I don't know how to heal." Nothing beyond small cuts or scrapes - she hadn't ever been stupid enough to try to fix a broken bone, not after the earful of muttering she'd heard from Madam Pomfrey after Lockhart's disastrous attempt on her arm. "How is he hurt?"

Wanda glared at the wall separating her from her brother. Cathryn could only assume that he was in for surgery of some kind.

"He's paralyzed below the waist."

Cathryn's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't imagine a worse injury for Pietro, who found immense joy in running and being active. "I'm sor - "

"Don't apologize!" Wanda shrieked. "Fix him!"

"I can't." She pinched the bridge of her nose, mind racing through all the resources she'd once had so easily available. She just knew too little about magical healing to be able to know for certain if it was even _possible_ to return Pietro to his feet. "Maybe," she murmured at last, hand dropping back to her side, fingers stroking nervously at the smooth-rough texture of scale. "I might be able to find someone who _might_ \- and I really don't know if they can - be able to do something."

"When?" Wanda asked ferociously.

This was a conversation better had in person. "How soon can we get to London?"

* * *

On the flight to her homeland, Cathryn was able to glean more about how Pietro had been injured. A mangled but still operational Ultron had liberated itself from under a pile of charred cars and taken the opportunity to spray bullets at the last Sokovians getting ready to board a transport. Pietro had flung himself in front of a young boy, and Wanda hadn't been fast enough to stop all of the bullets. Though she'd saved many civilians, she hadn't been able to keep a bullet from hitting her brother. It went without saying that she blamed herself.

Fury was not pleased to let Cathryn disembark without accepting an 'official' escort.

"The only reason that I've even allowed Thor is because he's proof that the muggle - sorry, _non-magical_ \- population is no longer as blind to magic as it once was. Any more people, and we'll be seen as a threat."

"I can - "

Cathryn cut Steve off with a sharp shake of her head. "I don't even know if Wanda will be able to see magical buildings without my aid. We'll be fine." _I hope_.

Fury narrowed his eye, and Steve crossed his arms, but in the end there was nothing they could do. The longer they argued, the less possibility there was of Pietro being helped, and in any case, none of the four who planned on leaving actually answered to Fury.

She did allow Steve to pilot the quinjet to street level, very glad for the stealth-mode. It was one thing to have a lone witch break the Statute in certain life-threatening circumstances, and another altogether to draw mass attention to the premier hospital in magical Britain.

"I have to go to Bulgaria after this," she told him quietly as they descended. Thor politely ignored their conversation, and Wanda was too busy fussing over her unconscious brother to care.

"You know where to find us," Steve returned.

"I shouldn't be longer than a few days."

His jaw tightened, and then he sighed. "Fine." The jet landed gently on the street.

Cathryn gave Steve a tense smile, dropping her hand to his shoulder as she passed him.

* * *

The waiting room of St. Mungo's was blessedly uncrowded compared to the handful of previous visits Cathryn had made, but the milling witches and wizards fell silent as soon as Thor stepped through the glass-window entrance a fraction of a second after Cathryn. Wanda, levitating her brother on a glimmering pallet of red energy, came through next; a path opened directly to the welcome witch.

The wizard whose turn it should have been gaped at Cathryn for several long seconds before scurrying out of the way with a muttered, "I have to - I'll just - not a problem."

"Thank you," Cathryn said. The wizard leaned against the wall, pulling at his overly-enlarged ears (nothing that a decent Shrinking Solution wouldn't fix; Snape had certainly had a way of making his lessons memorable).

The welcome witch blinked very rapidly as Cathryn and Wanda crowded next to the desk, Thor behind them, gazing over the avid crowd like a particularly imposing bouncer. After too many seconds of silence, Cathryn cleared her throat.

"Erm - symptoms?" the welcome witch asked.

"Muggle gunshot wound to the spine, suspected paralysis below the waist."

"I - er - " she fumbled her wand, dropped it on a stack of parchment (the topmost document turned a bright purple) and picked it up, blushing. A quick tap of her wand on a thick tome had pages turning of their own accord, until, "Creature Induced Injuries, First Floor."

"Creature induced - " Cathryn began incredulously, but bit her tongue. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," the welcome witch said faintly.

It wasn't particularly difficult to locate the correct place - at least four medi-wizards and -witches descended on Pietro as soon as the four of them entered the wide hallway connecting the many wards on the first floor. Within seconds, a stretcher had been conjured under Pietro; Wanda allowed her power to dissipate, following after her brother until she came up against a closed door.

Cathryn conjured three chairs. "Sit."

Wanda perched on the edge of the chair closest to the door, and Cathryn sat next to her. Thor eyed the somewhat-spindly chair, but sat all the same, relaxing somewhat when it didn't splinter beneath his weight.

An hour and a half passed before the door opened, releasing six medi-wizards and -witches and two Healers. While the first Healer glanced at his watch, swore, and jogged towards the staircase, the second Healer lingered in the doorway.

"Family?" Wanda was already on her feet, and slipped past the Healer into the room. Cathryn followed at a more sedate pace, Thor behind her.

"How - can he - ?" Wanda didn't seem able to form a question as she gripped her brother's limp hand.

"Will he be able to use his legs?" Cathryn asked the Healer.

"We're not sure. We've never had a case of paralysis caused by muggle technology before. We don't get many muggle injuries in general, let alone in someone like - well - you know, in one of _them_."

"Who's 'them'?" Cathryn asked.

"An abnormal muggle."

Cathryn frowned as she tried to figure out what the Healer was talking about. When she did realize, she was actually somewhat impressed that the Healer was aware of the muggle sub-group's existence. "A mutant, you mean?"

The Healer nodded. "The patient responded well to our potions and healing spells - better than a normal muggle, in any case, really he's the best we've seen compared to us magicals - so I would speculate that there's a high chance of him being able to walk. Running or anything else isn't a good idea for at least a year, if ever."

Cathryn nodded sharply, not sure whether she should celebrate the good news or not, given the accompanying bad news. "Thank you," she said instead, offering the Healer her hand. He shook it with a modest, "It's my job," and was a few steps away before Cathryn remembered to ask, "How soon can we leave?"

"Whenever you'd like," the Healer responded. "But no Floo, Apparition, or Knight Bus."

With another, "Thank you," Cathryn ushered Thor into the hospital room and closed the door behind her. Wanda had progressed past her initial state of inaction and was now fussing with Pietro's hair with one hand, the other still holding her brother's. It was a matter of a minute to charm Pietro's mattress into a Portkey, and hardly two hours after setting foot on her homeland for the first time in fourteen years, Cathryn left again.

* * *

Viktor must have set up some sort of extrasensory ward, because he came running out to greet them less than a minute after their rather bumpy landing.

"Vhat is that?" he demanded, gesturing at the remaining cluster of storm clouds from where Thor had just shot into the sky.

"One of my companions just left," Cathryn explained, and then nodded her head towards Wanda, whose eyes were narrowed as she stood between Viktor and Pietro. "This is Wanda Maximoff. Wanda, this is Viktor Krum, your mother's cousin's husband."

Some of the suspicion vanished from Wanda's face, but the wariness remained. "Pleased to meet you," she said stiffly. "Vhere can my brother rest?"

Viktor gave Cathryn a questioning glance.

"It's Pietro," she confirmed, and then added, "Gunshot - muggle weapon."

He nodded. "Ve have a room for each of you." Viktor lead the way to the house, Wanda holding her brother in the air behind him, and Cathryn brought up the rear.

The Krum's house was a very easy place to recover in. After greeting Ekaterina, Yvette, and little Aleksandar, Cathryn went directly to the room she'd stayed in earlier that year. She slept for nearly eighteen hours, and when she woke up, found that Rina had crept in sometime in the night to join her. Cathryn carried Rina back to her proper bed, and took a shower, only to be caught by Yvette on her way downstairs.

"How long vill stay you?" Yvette asked sleepily, poking her wand at the stove to heat up the kettle.

Cathryn found two teacups and set them out. "Only two more days. I don't know what Wanda and Pietro will do."

"Dey stay," Yvette scowled at Cathryn as if she'd threatened to drag them away with her, but waved her acceptance when she asked permission to bake. "Make vhat you like, Viktor vill eat if novun else like."

Cathryn gave a quiet snort of amusement, and began searching the coldbox for butter and cream. It'd been a long time since she'd had decent scones.

Ekaterina was more than pleased to have a second playmate. Cathryn found herself in the garden late on her last day, being instructed on the proper way to make a flower crown alongside a slightly less-worried Wanda.

"Has he said anything?" Cathryn asked once Rina was out of earshot gathering more flowers.

"Just that he vants to stay here for a while," Wanda replied, nimbly threading a yellow flower into her crown. "I vill stay until he is vell."

Cathryn nodded. "I thought you would. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Viktor or Yvette will know how to reach me, if you need to get in contact."

After a few seconds of silence, Wanda said, "Thank you."

As Rina trotted back into view, skirt gathered up to hold the flowers she'd found, Cathryn said, "Once he's well enough, you should have Viktor see if a broomstick will work for Pietro. I think he'll like flying."

Wanda laughed. "Da - yes, I think he vill."

Rina arrived with the new delivery of flowers, and they let the conversation drop, but Cathryn felt a sense of peace, knowing that she was leaving Wanda and Pietro in a place that they could be happy - that was the first time she'd heard Wanda laugh without bitterness or scorn.

* * *

Cathryn pulled her hood over her hair and stepped out from the alley, glancing back to make sure she'd closed the window to the fire escape of her flat above her bakery. Though she'd left Bulgaria well before sunrise, it was nearly noon on this side of the Atlantic, and the city was crawling with people looking for brunch or an early lunch.

Once she'd distanced herself a few blocks from her café, Cathryn discreetly pulled her hood down and did her best to look more like one of the many city-dwellers around her, and less like a truant teenager.

Stark's tower was, much like the man himself, ostentatious. Combined with its position at the crux of several famous streets, it wasn't difficult to navigate to, and it took Cathryn only twenty minutes to walk from her café to the skyscraper, passing through Central Park along the way.

She was a block and a half away from the entrance to Avengers Tower when someone fell into step with her.

"How's the kids?" Natasha asked, sliding her phone into her jean's pocket.

"Pietro's awake," Cathryn supplied, letting go of her wand handle. "Hasn't said much. They'll be staying there for a while."

Natasha was silent.

"How's everyone here?"

"Stark's fast-tracking a new facility for the Avengers."

"Oh?"

"Upstate."

Cathryn frowned as she followed Natasha into the lobby. "Why?"

"Maybe," Stark interrupted, trotting over from behind a pillar, "because I'm tired of having my windows blown out every six months." He jabbed the elevator button, and was rewarded with an immediate _ding!_ as the doors slid open.

"Half of the broken windows are a result of one of your experiments," Natasha pointed out.

Stark shrugged. "Pepper will be happier."

"I bet the Mayor of New York City will be too." Cathryn blinked under the shrewd gazes of Natasha and Stark. "I don't particularly enjoy politics, but I'm no stranger to how they work," she explained.

"You're not wrong," Stark admitted, scratching absently at his neck as the elevator continued to rise. "The lawsuits from three years ago are still ongoing, though no one's sure who to blame for what."

Cathryn frowned. "I never understood why you Americans like to sue each other over every little thing."

"Money," Stark supplied easily. The doors slid open, and he stepped out. "You'll want the third door on the left in the other direction," he told Cathryn as she and Natasha followed him out of the elevator. "Spangles has been trying to work off some of that frustration you seem to have - "

"You and Steve need to talk," Natasha interrupted Stark.

"Right." Cathryn turned the other direction, ignoring a sudden, "Hey!" from Stark.

* * *

The room that Stark had directed her to was half gym and half office. Steve was writing when she came in - what, she didn't know - but he dropped his pen and was halfway across the room before the door had shut behind her.

He stopped just short of her, hands at his sides, behind his back, and then finally in his pockets. "Pietro?"

"On his way to recovery, although there's no telling if he'll ever be able to move as fast as he did before without injuring himself. He'll be able to walk, at the very least."

Steve nodded. "That's good…" He trailed off, his eyes flicking towards her mouth for the barest moment before returning to hers. "Wanda stayed with him?"

"Until he's better."

He nodded again, paused, and took a small step forward. "And you?"

"A few stubborn bruises, but I'm fine." She tried to smile, but even she could tell it wasn't convincing. "What is this place?" she asked, trying to diffuse the tension between them.

Steve followed her gaze around the room. "My office. I do paperwork here - after-action reports, research for missions, that sort of thing."

"I didn't know that was part of what you did."

"Didn't used to be. I'd do the mission, return to base, get debriefed. Now, if I don't do it, it doesn't get done." He shook his head. "Another month and it'll all be moved to the new base - you've heard about that, haven't you?"

Cathryn nodded distractedly, trying to come up with a way to broach the subject she'd come here to talk about. "Natasha mentioned it." She hesitated, and then asked, "Are we - I mean, do you - " She cut herself off, and tried again. "Where do we go from here, the two of us?"

Steve stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "I meant what I said," he finally spoke, catching her eyes. "At the party, I mean. I still want to be with you, live with you." He frowned. "But I won't be living in the city any more. The new facility will have a living complex for all of the Avengers, so I guess you'd be there anyways."

Cathryn ran a hand through her hair, tugging her fringe sideways so it wasn't in her eyes. She stepped closer to Steve and put her hand on his arm. "I'm not sure I want to fight all the time," she said, and then rushed on. "I mean, I gave that up years ago, tried to live a quiet life, but then Fury pulled me in for the Chitauri, and then everything went bottoms up when SHIELD fell, and now I just - " she broke off, hugging herself. "I'm not even sure I'm me anymore. I don't know what it was that Hydra did to me with the stuff from the scepter, but I'm different. Something's different, and I don't know what, and that's - I don't know what to do about it, it's not like last time where I _knew_ why and how and - "

Steve ended her rambling by pulling her into a hug. She returned it gladly, turning her head so that she could see the expansive windows and not the mirrors that were set into the corner by the punching bag. "I understand," Steve said.

She didn't think he did, but he had at least gone through something vaguely similar with the serum, even if that had been voluntary.

"We'll figure out what they did," he continued. "And when Banner gets back, he can help. Stark will know some people."

Cathryn relaxed a little. "Thanks," she breathed, squeezing him a little. "I know some people too."

There was a moment of silence, and then, "People like you?"

She gave a little laugh. "Yeah. Hermione. My not-sister." She pulled back a little to look up at him. "You'll like her."

"You mean, meet her?"

"Yeah." She tapped her fingers against his back, leaning back to be able to meet his eyes. "I think," she said quietly, "That it'd be best if we didn't live together, at least not right away," she added quickly as his face closed off a little. "I just - I think we've got too many things to talk about, too many issues to work through to just jump back to where we might've been if none of this had happened."

Steve's arms dropped from around her shoulders, but she didn't let him move away, tightening her arms about his waist.

"A month," she said. "A month of being neighbors - we can even have rooms right next to each other! - and then, if everything's good between us, we can - talk about it again." She blinked up at him, worried that she'd just ruined everything as his silence stretched out. "Steve?"

He closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah," he agreed, opening his eyes and smiling. It wasn't a very big smile, but it was sincere, and Cathryn relaxed, an answering smile on her face. "I just - I wish things were easier."

Cathryn didn't know how to respond to that. She'd only ever been in one relationship, and that during a war. "Yeah. Me too." She pulled herself a little closer to Steve, who bent towards her. She tilted her face up for the expected kiss, but he stopped, his lips a few inches from her own.

"May I kiss you?" he asked, only half joking.

Instead of answering, she pressed her lips to his, and for the moment (and several moments after), all was well.

* * *

 **A/N** : So, that's it for this installment. I already have an outline for the next part, but I have about fifteen other things going on right now, so it will be a while before it's out. I definitely want to see the next Thor movie first because it may effect how I write things.

Thanks for reading!


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